


Fire Emblem: Three Houses Shorts and Prompts

by agent_cupcake



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst, Crack, Established Relationship, F/M, First Kiss, Fluff, Mild Smut, Reader is Not My Unit | Byleth, Reader-Insert, Romance, Yandere
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-02
Updated: 2020-07-06
Packaged: 2021-01-18 16:16:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 36,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21279617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agent_cupcake/pseuds/agent_cupcake
Summary: You know the drill, a compilation of reader insert shorts and prompts for Fire Emblem: Three Houses cross posted from my tumblr agent-cupcake.tumblr.comRequests are open~
Relationships: Caspar von Bergliez/Reader, Claude von Riegan/Reader, Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Reader, Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Reader, Hubert von Vestra/Reader, Lorenz Hellman Gloucester/Reader, Sylvain Jose Gautier/Reader
Comments: 21
Kudos: 411





	1. Dimitri x Reader + Angsty Kiss

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! I'm Cupcake and I have a blog and love of Three Houses and writing. This isn't my first rodeo with this sort of thing so I can already tell you two things-  
1\. I'm the worst with chapter titles. I try to convey what the chapter will be in the title so you can skip to a character / short that interests you, but that can be almost comedic at times.  
2\. I've decided this time that I'll put the ask from my blog [agent-cupcake.tumblr.com](https://agent-cupcake.tumblr.com/) in the chapter notes, with my own comments added in the chapter itself depending on if I feel it's necessary.
> 
> Feel free to send me requests in the comments here or on tumblr! If you want. I mean, if anyone ends up reading this. I have no idea tbh. I do fem!reader inserts, so not any shipping (unless it's character x character x reader), and I'm extremely open to hearing darker requests or requests of a sexual nature. Thanks for clicking on this, I hope you enjoy~

**Dimitri x Reader   
**

**Pre-established relationship / Post timeskip / angsty romance**

**Just a little short I had in mind from the second my most darlingest sweet lovely golden lion prince appeared on screen with his eyepatch and totally swaggy new clothes.**

-

Dimitri’s quarters were lit with a single flickering lamp, a coat of dust covering almost everything and a stale air of abandon cloaking the room. You shouldn’t have been here, you knew that, could feel the guilt building the longer you stayed, but your restless feet had led you here all the same.

Truthfully, there wasn’t much to see. Spare clothes, weapons, ghosts. His bed was made, laundered only because Mercedes had seen to it. Not that it mattered much, considering how little the prince actually slept. You couldn’t help but dwell on it all the same. Fond memories lingered there, softer ones. Humor and joy sparking an ember in the soft powder blue of Dimitri’s eyes, chasing away the cold emptiness that haunted him so. A shining smile warmed by genuine mirth, endearingly smug with victory whenever he made you moan or squirm. Words of affection, ones that held the sentimentality of a heart far too soft for the life he had lived.

In the stolen moments the two of you had been able to find together, you could remember the soft sensation of golden hair sliding between your fingers, the blunt edges tickling your skin whenever his mouth sought your skin. Laughter that eased the awkward moments between the artlessly needful kisses and fumbling touches of the two of you learning the practice of physical affection, that smoothed over the enthusiastically clumsy ardor of inexperience into something warm and wonderful. If you simply closed your eyes you could see him as he was, feel it all in a cruel phantasm of loss.

So lost in the memories, you were caught unaware when you were joined by another. It took being attacked for your mind to snap back into the cruel reality you now lived in. 

The wall at your back was cold and rough, the finish of the stone revealing its flaws when you were slammed against its surface. Unyielding, as immovable as the man who violently pushed you to it, both of them working together to drive the air from your lungs and render you immobile. The only contrast between the two was that while the stone was icy, Dimitri was hot. Feverish. He was fresh from bathing off the blood and grime of battle, and you were almost surprised that the water dripping from the ends of his hair wasn’t sizzling upon contact with his skin.

Survival instinct dictated that you fight him off, that you get as far away from his dangerous hands as possible. Dimitri was more than capable of hurting you, he’d even threatened as much. The so-called Boar Prince, his strength unmatched and violence unrestrained. You had never been more aware of the ease with which he could break you than right then, even without weapons or armor. They were hardly necessary when he himself was one of the most dangerous weapons of the kingdom.

But, for just a sliver of a second, you saw recognition flash through Dimitri’s shadowed blue eye. A minute softening reflected in the way his body went from crushing you against the wall to simply pinning you there. Seeing that, you didn’t struggle or fight. With all your heart, you knew that wouldn’t hurt you, not even this version of Dimitri, cracked and harsh, all raw edges and vicious words. You had to believe that, because if you were wrong… Then it didn’t matter what happened, you were all doomed anyway. 

So you met Dimitri’s gaze and steadied your breathing, raising your chin in defiance of his intimidating aggression.

“What are you doing here?” he demanded.

“I wanted to see you,” you told him, the simplest of all the answers you could think of. 

The words should have been brave, a show of your belief in who he was at his core. Instead, spoken while finally finding yourself face to face with Dimitri, they made you fully understand the unforgivable selfishness of what you’d done, why you had come. Dimitri was shattered and frightening, suffering a constant torment and haunted by the ghosts of the dead, and you _wanted_ him. In any way, every way. Not the man he had been five years ago, sweet and restrained and clumsy in the way he held you, but this man. The one you had abandoned, left to the creeping madness that had always hovered at the very edges of his eyes. 

“So you’ve come to gawk at the monster I’ve become?” Dimitri asked with a mocking sneer, “Or are you foolish enough to think I’d care for your company?”

It hurt to hear those things, far more than the bruising pain of his hold, but you also felt a pennant sort of deserving of them. Your pain was nothing compared to his, was it? Dimitri had lost everything, and you, all you had lost was-

Well, him. 

“No, it’s not that. I really… I just wanted to see you.” You swallowed hard, hating the way your body was reacting to his touch, to his proximity. It was a mess of conflicting feelings and emotion fueled sensations, memories of past moments drawing to your mind while your brain scrambled with the present danger and tension. Sickening, despicable, and, above all, addictive. It would be better to leave and never seek him out again, but you were certain to do so would kill you.

Dimitri shifted, letting up with his grip a bit more as he searched your face critically, some of the darkness pushed away for the shrewd intensity of understanding. His hand moved, palm pressed flat above your heart. Your body reacted to the suggestive placement of his touch, in a far different way than he likely intended. His disgust was palpable. 

“Your heart is fluttering, and those eyes of yours…” Dimitri’s voice was all but a growl, accusing you of one of the most damning sins of them all. And still, he didn’t pull away. Was it fear or desire he saw in your eyes as they nervously danced away from his? Or, perhaps, he could see the pain. It was an undercurrent to it all, ceaselessly gripping your very soul every moment you were confronted with what had become of the man you loved. It paled in comparison to his own, the Goddess only knew how true that was. To feel it was an insult, really, although you weren’t sure how that scaled compared to the rest of your wrongdoings. “So that is what you meant.”

What could you say to that? Buying time for yourself to come up with _something_ to offer him, some words that could resolve the mess your brain had crumbled into, your hands settled hesitantly, one against his chest and the other on his arm, not pushing him away or holding him closer, but poised for either. Dimitri stiffened at the touch.

“How indecent.” He spat the word as an insult. 

Then he pounced. 

There was no soft, awkward uncertainty. No fumbling caresses of a first time lover trying to hold himself back from hurting you. Dimitri was icy flame, driven by the conflicted passion of a man seeking something he convinced himself he couldn’t want, uncaring and violent under the edit of the buried man you’d known. Animalistic carnality, melted down to the most base of impulse and need. Lust wasn’t what had his hands pulling and pushing and tearing at your clothes. Physical affection wasn’t what led his mouth at your neck, chapped lips held to your pulse as if ready to bite and bleed you out.

You had no idea what this was, what to call the disgusted pleasure when he pushed a muscular thigh between your legs, how to interpret the sickening glee of Dimitri’s violence marking your body with bruises even the most difficult of battles hadn’t managed to inflict. Your fingers pushed into his still damp hair, pulling hard with the instinct memory of the intimacy you had once shared. Dimitri growled, a sound as intimidating as any beast you’d encountered.

“I could… Kill you,” he ground out between his teeth, voice labored with heavy breath and strain. A threat, or a warning? A highlight for how absurdly wrong this was, how terrible to seek this out in the arms of a man as fractured as he. Feeding his madness, his pain.

Selfish. You were unforgivable and selfish. So you kissed him.

The press of your mouth against his was a threshold he had been avoiding, a line you so brashly crossed with the fervor of temptation, with the desire to reclaim something lost. Dimitri’s lips were rough and out of practice, and, for just a fraction of an instant, they yielded to yours. Kissing him was everything you wanted, thrilling. It only highlighted what you could never have again, agonizing. For just a brief moment, something about the connection of the act was enough, imperfectly perfect. Then he growled again, breaking the kiss and pushing you against the wall hard enough to knock the air from your lungs once more.

“Insatiable,” he growled. Angry, his single blue eye shone with the emotion. Anger, desperation, fear, swirling and spiraling and dark. “To desire a monster… You’re no better than I am, are you? You never have been.”

To that, you had no answer at the ready, hardly able to form a coherent thought while you spun from it all. Within you was a torrent of confused lust and self loathing, a liquid heat of emotion that seemed to pulse mostly violently where you could feel him pressed against you. This was wrong, but so was everything else. So were you, and so was he, everyone fumbling about on a tilted stage of dizzy delusion and violence, poisoned by sweet memories and the promise of victory.

“Maybe not,” you said quietly, cheeks flushed and chest heaving, eyes stinging as you studied his face, sharpened like the most dangerous of weapons and shadowed with anguish. Like a strike of lightning in a storm, a new expression formed on Dimitri’s face. It wasn’t that of the madman or beast, nor was it the man of five years ago, but a mixture of them all. A terrifying tragedy. And, just as fast as that burst of electricity, emotion lost out to the all-consuming darkness he had succumbed to in the eternity of five years.

“If that’s the case,” Dimitri said, his voice low, the same tone of the most intimidating of threats, “Then I have no reason to hold back, do I?” 


	2. Claude + Last Golden Deer Patriot

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _anonymous said:   
Dumb request but claude and reader as the last of the golden deer after byleth steals all the students >~___

**It figures that the first thing I post for Claude is a glorified shitpost, but this entertained me greatly so I hope you get a kick outta it, too ♥**

-

Garreg Mach Monastery had known peace, synchronicity, and good will between students and houses regardless of family name or status. After arriving at the famous academy, you had become fast friends with your fellow students and house leader, had been given the wondrous opportunity to obtain knowledge you had only been able to dream of in your life before.

But that all changed when the new professor arrived.

Nothing had been the same since, no aspect of life left untouched by the ex-mercenary’s immeasurable intelligence, strength, and allure. The bloodless battle had taken its toll, and the losses had been great. Two final patriots remained in what had once been a grand house, plotting their last bid for any semblance of victory alone in the near abandoned classroom of the Golden Deer, surrounded by empty chairs at empty tables and the hollow ache of knowing some of their closest allies had sold them out for someone who didn’t even know how sleeves worked.

“I gotta admit, things are looking pretty bleak…” Claude said uncertainly, staring at the board bearing the names of the dastardly turncoats, a poorly rendered illustration of the blue haired professor themselves drawn in the very center with a little X lined across. “Still, credit where credit is due. Teach really knows how to turn on the charm.”

Boy, did they ever. Something about the vague gesturing and lack of emotion was appealing in a way you still didn’t understand, proving that the professor’s power couldn’t be discounted, or even measured. You sighed, resisting the urge to let your face fall to the desk’s cool surface. Although life was arguably easier without the constant bickering of your classmates, it was much too sad to go without. They all insisted it wasn’t personal, and were all friendly enough outside of the classroom, but that didn’t take away the sense of sad isolation.

“How many is Hanneman’s class down to?” you asked.

“Same as us, pretty much. Can’t see how this is allowed, but it seems Rhea’s willing to turn a blind eye for now. It’s all up to us to sort this out.”

Of course it was. Still, rather than submit to the difficulty, Claude seemed to want to confront the issue with a seriousness that bordered on ridiculous. Like an actual war. More and more, you found yourself wrapped up in the same mentality. He had that effect on you, a bewitching sort of spell. The new professor was many things, but Claude von Riegan they were not.

“I can talk to Lysithea. I think if I approach her with logical, adult arguments as to why a smaller class with an actual mage teaching benefits her studies, she’ll come around. Besides, a new confectioner just opened and I’ve got an in with the owner. She can’t say no to that.” You paused, eyeing your beloved house leader. “You can’t keep teasing her, though, Claude. No matter how badly you want to.”

Claude looked down at you with a frown, eyebrows collapsing in a way that was distinctly crestfallen. “Aw, come on. How would she know I cared about her if I didn’t?” he asked. Your eyes narrowed. He, thankfully, picked up on the hint. “Fine, fine, point taken. I’ll restrain myself. For now. I can talk to Hilda, she’s lazy enough that if I dangle the lack of work smaller classes are given in front of her, she’ll come right on back.”

“Not to mention how _grateful_ she knows we’ll be if she comes back,” you said, wondering idly what sort of favors she’d pull in return. But that was inconsequential to you right then, as long as she brought the sweet scent of her perfume and overall cheery attitude back into the classroom. “I had a few ideas about how to get Raphael back,” you continued a moment later, “Firstly, I say we butter him up real nice with a grand feast of some kind. Then, I was thinking… He, uh, he’s said that I remind him a little of his sister…”

“I’m shocked,” Claude responded with feigned surprise after you trailed off awkwardly, hoping he’d get the implication. “You aren’t suggesting you’d stoop to such low methods of manipulation to win him back, are you?” 

You blushed. “Well…” Now that he’d said it so bluntly, you did feel a tad guilty for entertaining the thought. 

Claude laughed it off. “Nah, all’s fair in love and war, I say. Besides, if Teach won’t fight fair, I don’t see why we should.”

You let out a small sigh of relief, although you weren’t sure getting Claude’s endorsement on an idea necessarily meant it was a good one. It did mean, however, that it was more likely to work. And, really, what else mattered?

“That leaves Leonie, Ignatz, Lorenz, and Marianne,” you said, listing them off one by one on your fingers. Once more, the impossibility of the task returned to you, the low chances of success in going against the new professor’s charm and likability made apparent by the fact that they’d managed to win even the quiet and hard to read Marianne to their house.

“Lorenz will come back, don’t worry about him,” Claude said, a foreboding sort of suggestiveness to the words. His expression, too, was smug, eyes twinkling with impish light when he tipped a wink. You considering brushing past it and hoping for the best, but curiosity won out.

“What are you going to do to him?” you asked, unable to help yourself.

“Me? Do something to to him?” Claude questioned, as if aghast at the mere idea. The corner of his lip quirked at the sight of your unmoved expression. “Don’t worry,” he soothed, “All I intend to do is show him that his guidance is needed, no, _crucial_ for the sake of the alliance. Really, it’s doing him a favor.”

You nodded, understanding and agreeing with the logic in that plan. Honestly, though, Claude could have pitched a mass poisoning and you probably would have gone along with it.

“I’ll butter him up, too. I think his favorite tea was… Bergamot? Yeah, I can arrange that.” 

Another minute as you considered the rest of them. Leonie was tough, considering her adoration for Captain Jeralt and the proxy connection with the professor. Marianne was difficult for you to understand, more than anything you were sure you just needed to dedicate some time to getting to know her. Ignatz was slightly easier, but if you went in too hard with his favored hobby of art, he’d definitely shy away further in embarrassment. 

Claude pulled you from your contemplation with a sigh, catching your attention as he stared with a determined expression at the poor caricature of the professor on the board.

“None of this matters if we can’t do something about Teach… Don’t get me wrong, they have my eternal respect and gratitude for saving my life back there, but in this case they are our enemy. There’s something about them that I can’t understand, a reason that they’ve been able to recruit more than three quarters of the students here despite the odds that say it should be impossible. I can only imagine how great of a team we’d all be if they’d chosen our house…”

He trailed off, face drawn in concentration as he thought, hand curled at his chin.

A new idea came upon you at those words, making you sit straight up in your seat. It was a bad plan, and probably wouldn’t work. Scratch that, you weren’t even sure if it _could_ work.

“Claude, have you considered that we’ve been going about this the wrong way the whole time?” you asked. He turned to you, an eyebrow cocked at your sudden shift in attitude.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you know that saying, ‘If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em’?”

“Are you saying we should join Teach’s house, too?” he asked skeptically, amusement playing at the edges of his words.

“No, no, nothing like that.” You stood up, putting yourself at eye level with him. At the same time, the sun and clouds shifted, allowing for a radiant spotlight straight from the heavens to slant in through the windows and illuminate your newly motivated figure. The unintentional dramatics weren’t lost on you. 

It was a foolish plan likely destined for failure, but, unfortunately, those were the only types of plans left in a brutal war such as this. Or maybe you were just bored with the current conversation and wanted to start something more interesting.

“Let’s recruit Professor Byleth,” you said with a confidence belying the absurdity of the words. “We can show all the other professors and students why they should really _fear the deer_.”

It was delayed, but once your words had taken proper hold in the endlessly spinning gears of his mind, Claude let out a genuine laugh.

“That’s one way to do it, I suppose,” he said, shaking his head, “Although… No, it couldn’t possibly work… Unless… What do you know about school regulations on professors and houses?” 


	3. Claude x Reader + Spying/First Kiss

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _canadian-bastard said:   
Hello my little snickernut could you pls write something for Claude c:___

**Concept: Reader catches Claude spying but gets caught herself, winding up in a precarious situation fixed with a very awkward first kiss.**

-

Unlike certain people who eyed Claude with distrust out of suspicion regarding the validity of his title, or those who doubted him for something as silly as being different, you had no real ill will towards the mysterious Riegan heir.

Not _really_.

It was normal to feel curious about such a secretive and interesting person, right? Claude was an enigma, one you had found yourself swept up in. Not because you cared too particularly about his character one way or another, but because it was a mystery. Not to mention the fact that you were nosy, had found yourself some extra free time, and he was behaving particularly suspiciously as of late. Still, you felt it was important to assert that you were not following him with nefarious intent. No, you were a scholar, always in the search of answers. Or something along those lines.

Besides, if Claude hadn’t wanted to be followed, he shouldn’t have looked so sneaky when he followed the professor up to the second floor. It was like he was begging you to see what he was up to.

The sweeping halls of the second floor were mostly quiet and empty, the grand doors to the archbishop’s chambers shut tight. You tread lightly as you approached the corner you had watched Claude disappear around, your ears straining for any stray footsteps or voices. Peeking around it, all you saw was an empty corridor with a dead end. Except for the door, covertly placed and painted so as to not disrupt the clean appearance of the walls.

A supply closet? Unless Claude had been taking magic lessons you were unaware of, that was the only place he could be hiding. Still, why would he be hiding? You approached the door warily, considering all of the things he could be doing. Some of them were more plausible than others. Unthinkingly, you reached out to grasp the handle, as if to test it.

The door didn’t have a lock.

You had a bad feeling deep in your gut. This wasn’t a great idea.

Unfortunately, you didn’t possess enough self control to leave your curiosity unfulfilled. You had to know what Claude was doing, and there was one simple way to find out. Just to satiate your curiosity a little.

So you opened the door as quietly as you could, peering into the tiny crack of an opening. It was a closet, like you thought. Cleaning supplies and other junk filled the small, dusty space. Although it was dark, enough light came in from a grated panel on the back wall for you to see the most interesting aspect of the otherwise inconspicuous closet. That is, a uniformed back, belonging to someone standing on a stool. If the messy hair weren’t enough, the golden cape thrown across his shoulder was all you needed to identify who it was. Claude was facing the wall, baffling you completely until you heard a voice coming from the vent-like opening he was eye level with, the one that allowed in enough light for you to see him in the first place.

Archbishop Rhea’s voice.

Suddenly, it all made sense. His behavior, his sneaking, this closet. Her chamber was on the other side of the wall Claude was looking through. The chamber in which the professor had disappeared into only minutes before he followed. He was spying on their private meeting.

From your position, you couldn’t make out what was being said exactly, only that it was definitely Rhea and Seteth’s voices. If you wanted to hear them clearly, you would have had to get up to where Claude was standing, but that would clue him into your own spying ways.

It was best to retreat and consider what to do with this revelation.

Ideally, at least, that would have been the best option.

Unfortunately, you didn’t account for that being the moment the meeting ended, nor did you react before Claude became aware that he was being watched. Tension shifted in the dusty air, his head whipping around to find you peeking through the crack in the door.

And, graceful under pressure as ever, you slammed it shut.

Loudly.

With as much reverb as the monastery was capable of.

“Huh? What was that?” Seteth’s voice was sharp, coming from just around the corner where the chamber doors were. His voice was loud, but his footsteps were louder. “I thought I had cleared-”

The closet door reopened, and you didn’t hesitate in throwing yourself at the confused guy who stood inside, ignoring Claude’s disgruntled confusion. Seteth’s voice dulled when you pulled the door shut as quietly as possible.

“What are you doing here?” Claude asked in a stage whisper. While you didn’t have a very good answer to that, you did know for a fact that you were both going to get caught unless one of you suddenly learned Warp. But you’d never been much for magic, and Claude’s best trick was managing to disappear when he had an unfavorable chore schedule.

That left only one thing.

Improvisation.

“I’m really sorry about this,” you whispered apologetically, steeling yourself for what you intended to do.

Claude’s ‘Excuse me?’ was cut off almost entirely by the way you grabbed the front of his uniform, pulling him down so you could put your lips on his. It was awkward, the angle wrong and causing you to land on the side of his mouth. But it wasn’t a real kiss, so it wasn’t like you had the luxury of embarrassment. Instead you brought your hands up to messy his hair, not that it really needed it, tilting your head and gasping as if caught in the very height of pleasure.   
  
To your infinite relief, Claude played along after only a moment of stiffness.

It wasn’t a real kiss. When you ran your tongue along his bottom lip, it was to fill the role. When he responded by biting your lip, the zing of heat in your stomach and genuine groan was from a feeling of surprise, not pleasure. It wasn’t a real kiss. But it wasn’t a bad one, either.

The door opened, ending the short lived spell. Still, you didn’t break away from Claude. If anything, you knew you were overacting it. Luckily, so was he. Although you hadn’t risked looking yet, you could feel Seteth’s awkwardness at the display. He cleared his throat loudly twice before you finally responded, feigning confused bleariness before acting in faux panic, pushing Claude away with a nearly violent shove and wiping your mouth quickly, regarding Seteth with wide eyes and panting breath. Hopefully, your guilt would read as shame.

“Come out of there,” Seteth demanded, opening the door wide enough for the both of you to enter the hall. You suppressed the feeling of relief that he shut the door without further investigation into the closet’s unique qualities. It wasn’t as if you had been the one spying, and it seemed like you were going to be in a lot of trouble anyway. Burned again by your pursuit of knowledge. The world was truly unfair.

“What is the meaning of this?” Seteth asked, crossing his arms. He was mad. Very mad.

“We… We were studying and I accidentally spilled some ink, so Claude offered to help me find something to clean it up with,” you said. A quick lie, and not your best, but it was all you could think of. Besides, it fit in with the theme of being a girl dumb enough to get caught kissing a boy in a supply closet. Not that you could really claim intellectual superiority at this point.

“Unfortunately, it was kinda hard to find anything in that dark. Guess we got a little mixed up,” Claude added. If you weren’t terrified of Seteth, you might have laughed at that.

“I see,” Seteth said, unamused. “Finding you here would have nothing to do with the private meeting between the professor, Archbishop, and I, would it?”

“Why would it?” you asked, relaxing your face against the wide eyed believe me expression you knew would give you away.

“Sorry, we might have been a little distracted,” Claude said. “I’m sure you know how it goes, Seteth. Young love and all that. Er… You were young once, weren’t you?”

Seteth’s jaw tightened.

“This type of inappropriate conduct is unacceptable,” he said. “If I see the two of you engaging in such public depravity again in the future, I’ll have no choice but to discipline you.”

“Technically, we weren’t in public,” Claude said. He wasn’t helping.

“Unfortunately I am too busy today, so I’ll allow you to go with a warning,” Seteth continued, as if he hadn’t heard Claude. “Consider yourself lucky.”

He stepped aside, motioning you through. Not having to be told twice, you rushed to comply, making your way towards the main hall and stairwell. As you passed, you couldn’t help but notice that Rhea’s chambers were open. Luckily, the professor was nowhere to be seen, the last thing you wanted was that disapproving stare.

“One last thing,” Seteth called before you began your way down the steps and out of his sight. “I’d like to note that I’m very disappointed in you for behaving in such a manner. You would do well to think more carefully about how you conduct yourself in the future. I recommend you pray to the Goddess for forgiveness and guidance.”

Although you weren’t necessarily at fault for the sin he was accusing you of, Seteth still had the wonderful knack to make you feel guilty. You supposed the subdued and awkward nod you managed in response was in-character, at least.

“And you Claude…” Seteth’s piercing green eyes switched to the man behind you. “Tread carefully.” Taking those unnerving words to mean that was all, you gratefully began your descent down the steps to the ground floor.

“Sheesh, ominous much?” Claude grumbled, taking the steps right behind you.

No kidding. The man scared you almost as much as the Death Knight did, at least the worst thing the Death Knight could do was kill you. In an offhand manner, you deeply feared for anybody who would one day fall in love with Flayn.

That frantic thought left you once your feet reached the bottom of the stairs and you were free. Relatively safe, you allowed yourself to deflate a bit. The forced calm you had managed to keep up in the moment fled, leaving your shoulders to slouch and lungs to empty of all the air you’d been holding. Your companion didn’t seem to need the same moment of reprieve after nearly being caught, endlessly casual in posture and expression.

“Wo-ow,” Claude said, drawing out the word, already on the move. Seemingly without a care in the world, he put his arms up and folded them behind his head as he left the hall towards the classroom block, moving without any of the jittery excess of nerves you still had. “I didn’t think you had it in you, but that was really great.”

You flushed at hearing the almost-praise. It had a duel edge, his surprise that someone like you would be capable of lying like that feeling both approving and condescending. Still, there was no point in dwelling on it. It was better than the anger you undoubtedly deserved, at least.

Not knowing what else to do, you hurried to catch up beside Claude as the two of you entered the late day sunshine and mostly empty lawn area outside the homeroom building. There were some students scattered about, but they paid you no mind.

“Don’t mention it,” you responded as normally as you could, not wanting to lose your cool in front of Claude. Or anyone, for that matter. Unfortunately, your body didn’t get the memo, and adrenaline was already catching up to your pounding heart, making your fingers tremble slightly and your movements a bit stilted. It took effort on your part to not look up at the second story windows, to keep your gait normal as the two of you walked.

“No, really,” Claude said, tipping his head towards you so you could see the devious twist of a smirk on his lips, “Your technique is fantastic. Do you practice?” 

“Practice?” you asked, frowning. What did he mean by technique? Was there a special way to lie you were unaware of?

“Yeah, like with a pillow or something?”

His expression did nothing to clear your confusion. Baffled, you had no response.

“Unless you have a secret boyfriend you didn’t tell any of us about. I guess that would explain it. You young’un’s are moving so fast these days.”

Oh.

Embarrassed displeasure made you wince as you finally understood what he was talking about. In all of the excitement, you’d nearly forgotten about that. Or, at least, you could have put off remembering kissing him until you were alone.

“I’ll take that expression as a yes.” He paused, eyes twinkling mischievously despite the fairly serious tone. “Oh… Is he gonna be jealous? I mean, it was a pretty passionate kiss.”

“Claude.”

“Still, I wouldn’t want to become a rift in the relationship. I can let this mystery man know under no uncertain terms that it was a kiss with a noble, non-romantic cause.”

“Claude.”

“Oh, and don’t worry. I won’t mention your uncanny ability to evoke deeply stirring emotions with just a mere touch… Or that thing you did with your tongue-”

“Claude!” you finally cried, cutting him off with a voice just a touch too loud. It made other people look at you, stopped at the pillar outside the Golden Deer classroom. “First of all, you’re barely a month older than me. Second, it.. It was just pretend. I couldn’t think of anything else,” you told him, trying to save face as best you could, looking away from his grin with hot cheeks and a heart pounding for a reason entirely different than intimidating old men. Intimidating young men, this time. And regret.

“Sure, sure,” Claude agreed easily. “A pretty convenient excuse if you ask me. But, you know that you didn’t have to go through all the trouble of setting up a situation like that, you could have just asked. Or maybe you like the excitement of danger…”

“I don’t suppose I can ask you to just forget that it happened?” you interrupted him to ask. “As repayment for saving you in the first place.”

“Need I remind you that it was your fault I needed saving in the first place?” Claude responded, “I’m afraid I’ll never be able to forget a kiss like that, although I’m sure it suits both of us to not mention what happened to anybody else, wouldn’t you say?” His expression was more serious with that question, imparting something far more solid than the teasing. Of course he wouldn’t want anybody to know that he was spying on the Archbishop’s private meetings.

“That’s true,” you agreed slowly. He grinned.

“See? It all works out.”

“That’s.. Well, fine, I guess.” You knew there was no point in arguing further. Besides, he had reminded you of something far more important than your embarrassment. Still, you hesitated, just for a moment. Curiosity had burned you before. As in, only minutes ago. Unfortunately, impulse control was clearly not your strong suit. “Why were you spying on them to begin with?”

Tension followed your question, as did silence. Claude looked at you in a far different way than before, his eyes piercing and calculating. The stark difference between his easy smile and this serious look was enough to give you whiplash.

Ultimately, however, he was saved.

“Claude?” a familiar voice suddenly broke through the air. “There you are! We have work duty today. Geez, you’re such a slacker!” Hilda, rounding the corner with her twintails swinging and skirt swishing, stomped towards the both of you. Other students practically dove out of her way and, for a second, you were sure you saw a trace of fear in Claude’s expression too. Everyone cowered before Hilda’s outraged fury, it was honestly impressive to see. But you didn’t blame them.

“Sorry, I got a little distracted-” he began to explain, his serious mood completely dropped in favor of the lighter persona you knew well.

“That’s no excuse!” Hilda stopped in front of him with a final stomp, hands on her hips and wearing an expression that promised a storm. That vanished when, for a second, she turned towards you with a smile and sweet voice, “Hello! Sorry, I’ll just be stealing him for a bit, I hope that’s okay.”

“Stealing me…” Claude repeated doubtfully. His eyes flicked towards you, and you could see the moment he realized that she was giving him an out. That moment was quickly followed by his jumping head on into the charade, “Right! We’re on sky watch, I believe? Very important stuff. Sorry to leave so abruptly, but I’m afraid it really just can’t be avoided.”

“That’s right,” Hilda agreed, nodding seriously.

“It really is a shame, though,” Claude said regretfully, the tone at odds with the sparkling mischief in his eyes. “I _really_ enjoyed our time together. What we shared was… Well, I wouldn’t want to embarrass you by mentioning it in front of our friend here. Suffice to say, I’d love to pick up where we left off some time. Preferably in a place where we won’t get caught again, eh?” Claude capped off his implication-laiden question with a wink, just to add insult to injury.

The message was received, both in your hot cheeks and Hilda’s dropped jaw. He smiled a self satisfied smile and brushed past Hilda.

“Now let’s go, I wouldn’t want to keep the skies waiting.”

“Sure…” Hilda said, her eyes unabashedly fixed on you as his words processed in her mind. The idea of trying to convince her that Claude was making it out to be something it wasn’t crossed your mind, but you knew that would only further incriminate you. After a moment too long, she snapped out of it and tore her gaze away, rushing after him with a call for him to wait for her.

They left you rooted to the spot, cheeks burning in embarrassment and anger, fists clenched at your side as you blustered with emotion, and dumbfounded by everything that had just happened. The more pressing and important matters regarding his spying habits and lying to Seteth somehow seemed unimportant compared to this new problem, or at least a lot more manageable. Whatever Hilda thought, soon the whole academy would probably think it, too.

And Claude couldn’t leave it at just that, either. No, before he turned the corner and disappeared from your vision altogether, he looked back at you with a wink and a smile, blowing you a cheeky kiss as a final farewell.

It made your lips burn.

Maybe you felt a little bit of that oh-so popular ill will towards the infamous Riegan heir, now. Regrettably, your curiosity had only gotten worse as a result. 


	4. (yan!Dimitri verse) Felix Lecturing Reader

_I should be working on schoolwork and there’s a chance this won’t even make a lot of sense, but when thinking about yan! Dimitri I also like to consider the reactions of everyone else, too. I have a few shorts in this 'yan!Dimitri verse', and I'll probably do more._

**AKA - Felix lecturing an oblivious reader about her ~questionable~ relationship with Dimitri**

**-**

“You,” Felix said. His voice, interrupting a rather pleasant train of thought about how pretty the flowers were becoming, made you tense up with frightened surprise. The watering can fell from your hand as you stood straight up, turning around with a zip of nerves rushing through your stomach. Thankfully, not much water remained in the can, the last bit splashing across the greenhouse floor and your shoes. It had been, perhaps, an overreaction. But he _had _surprised you.

Besides, Felix was one of the last people you would want to be approached by while you while you were mostly alone. Not that you thought he’d do anything, but because, despite your best efforts, you got the feeling he didn’t much like you. The heaviness of his glare when you faced him practically spoke for itself.

“Do you need something, Felix?” you asked, clasping your hands in front of you to keep from fidgeting with them. He didn’t respond to your forcefully light tone, nor your attempt at a smile. Rather, he crossed his arms, eyes narrowing as he first regarded the watering can you’d dropped so clumsily, then rose to you to stare intently with that too-sharp gaze.

“You and the boar are awfully close,” he said.

Your eyebrows furrowed, lips parting in surprise. Out of anything he could have said, that wasn’t something you wanted to hear. The blunt words made your face feel hot, but you couldn’t tell which made you feel more flustered: Felix calling Dimitri a boar, or the implication that you were overly close with him. Either way, you attempted to make up for the feeling, your words coming out in an awkward tumble, “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Oh please,” Felix scoffed. “I can hardly stand to see it. The way he looks at you sickens me. Even worse is the way you behave around him, I can’t tell if you’re simply playing coy or if you’re truly that blind. It’s disgusting.”

The outright hostility in Felix’s voice made your mouth run dry. It was one thing to suffer his disdainful glances and dismissive words from afar, but entirely another thing to be confronted with his cruel thoughts, let alone such embarrassing ones.

“It’s not like that at all,” you were able to get out, tripping over the words. “I think you’ve misunderstood, I-”

“It seems like you didn’t listen the first time I warned you, so I’ll repeat myself,” Felix said, cutting you off before you could finish whatever placating explanation you could come up with. “You should stay away from him. He might seem human for now, but he _will _hurt you if you continue to buy into this human act of his. You can’t expect anything more out of a wild boar like himself.”

“That’s.. That’s not true,” you said, your hands untangling so your fists could tighten at your sides. Indignation finally took hold amidst your embarrassment, the need to defend against Felix’s accusations pulling words from your mouth before you could reconsider. “Dimitri would never do anything to hurt me.. Or anyone.”

Felix raised his chin, obviously displeased with your response. “Oh? Then how do you explain what happened the other day on the battlefield?” His tone was light, but cold. Challenging you to argue.

The question made you recoil once you worked through the shock of disbelief that he’d bring this up at all. The other day, Felix meant, when your class had engaged in a small skirmish against bandits holding up a trade route. A battle that had become practically routine for the Blue Lions. What wasn’t routine was the momentary sloppiness that caused you to get hurt. Unintentionally, your hand went to your side, which still ached terribly despite the restoration magic, the skin stained purple and blue with healing bruises. A phantom pain of the embedded spearhead remained fresh, the way the metal had glanced off your ribs and ripped into your skin difficult to forget.

“You saw that?” you asked, your voice hushed. It wasn’t the the memory of the attack that had your knees weak, but what had happened afterwards. What you had seen while you were collapsed and bleeding, vision blurry with pain.

“Of course I did. If the boar hadn’t rushed in, I would have been more than capable of stepping in to save you.”

You couldn’t actually remember if Felix had been there or not, but his words carried the uncomfortable implication that Dimitri’s actions hadn’t even been necessary. Ice rushed through your veins at the idea. For the sake of your own sanity, you were able to believe that you could still be forgiven if you killed only to protect, if you hurt others only in the name of doing what you knew was truly right. It was the same for your friends. They were not murderers, what all of you did was necessary.

But, when Dimitri had cut down that particular bandit, he had been smiling. A gruesome grin. His attack was not meant to kill straight away, but to hurt the man. To revel in the torture before he slaughtered him. The bandit had died screaming in agony, practically disemboweled by the time he was finally allowed to fall. It was ugly to remember, disturbing, colored oddly by the pain and battle frenzy. You didn’t want to remember.

Trying to put the image out of your mind, you shook your head. You couldn’t think of that smile, you had to focus on the truth. It was true that if Dimitri hadn’t stepped in, you would have died. Since you hadn’t seen him, there was no way Felix was close enough to stop the spear from striking true and killing you. Dimitri had killed to protect. And afterwards he had come to visit you in the infirmary, apologized for allowing you to get hurt. Apologized for whatever you’d seen.

“Do you condemn him for saving my life?” you finally asked Felix. That wasn’t his point, you knew it wasn’t, but you had no defense for the face Dimitri had worn in that moment of pure brutality.

“Of course not,” Felix said, speaking with an air of exasperation.

“Then what?”

Felix huffed, his lip curling in disdain. “Maybe it’s because you lack the perspective to see it, but I’ve known the boar a long time. The way he feels about you is unnatural. More than usual.”

“He.. I…” you stuttered, as uncomfortably unhappy as you were embarrassed, “It’s not like that, we’re just _friends_.” 

Felix scoffed, a cold sound that approximated a short laugh. “Fine. If you’re content with remaining a blind fool, then that’s your choice. Just don’t come crying to me when you realize that I’m right.”

“Fine,” you agreed, forcing your voice to harden, to sound strong and not let him see how much he rattled you. That had to be it, you needed it to be it. You couldn’t control your emotions much longer, yet Felix remained.

“One last thing,” he said, his voice lower, smoother. Dangerous. “If you don’t put a stop to this, it will inevitably end horribly. If you allow that to happen and he gets hurt as a result of your idiocy, I will _never_ forgive you.”

Harsh eyes held yours, the moment suspended along with your breath. Felix let the threat settle, then finally turned and stalked out of the greenhouse without any further word, leaving you to the humid scent of soil and greenery, as well as your own tangled thoughts. 


	5. (yan!Dimitri verse) Dimitri x Reader + Silent Moment

**Dimitri x Reader **

**Takes place directly after The Flame in the Darkness (the Remire Calamity)**

**-**

It wasn’t your intention to be so rude, but Dimitri’s door wasn’t closed all the way when you knocked. It prompted the well-oiled hinges to open the door for you, rather than wait for his say-so.

You hadn’t intended to be rude, really, but you weren’t polite enough to do anything but stare at the sight that greeted you either.

Dimitri hadn’t bothered with the lamp, cool gray light from the window the only illumination for the dim and dreary room you unintentionally intruded on. Still, it was enough light to reveal his simple quarters, a place without decoration or individualism. Drab, Dimitri being the only thing to break up the monotony. While usually you would have argued that he should care more about the aesthetics of his own private room, the dark and hollow setting suited him now. It matched the way he sat on the edge of his bed with his posture uncharacteristically slouched forward, a complement to the desaturated and lifelessness of the brilliant blue and golden blond colors you knew him for. Even the air was still and unmoving, suspended and stagnant.

I wasn’t your intention to be rude by suddenly barging in, but it didn’t matter anyway. He didn’t even react.

The fiery blaze of fury had burned Dimitri out, the absence of it leaving him with glassy eyes and an empty expression, a mixture of dark focus and vacant aloofness from reality. It was a haunting look, frightening in a completely different way from his rage. 

Any questions you had regarding his outburst outside of Remire Village or the conversation he had with the Professor afterwards dried out in your mouth, chased away by the painful ache this tragically isolated sight hit you with. How could you feel frightened of _this_ man? How could you so selfishly allow yourself to be prompted by the desire to pry into his secrets when they obviously hurt him so? 

And even if you could allow of any of that, what would you say to begin?

But you knew.

Nothing, there was nothing. Words weren’t enough, and maybe it was like Felix said and you weren’t enough, either. But you couldn’t just turn your back on Dimitri like this, couldn’t just cast out this terribly sad sight and pretend you never saw his pain. Even if it wasn’t enough, even if he told you to leave, you had to _try_. 

So, without speaking, not daring to break the silence by asking for permission, you entered his room and shut the door as it had been before you knocked. It wasn’t quite closed, but it wasn’t open either. The implications of that almost-privacy would have usually made you embarrassed, but not today. That emotion was out of place in the grim setting of his room as you sat on the edge of his bed, eyes turned forward at the same wall Dimitri’s empty gaze was turned towards. You weren’t close enough that you were touching, but not so far that you couldn’t smell him. The scent of that thick, awful smoke from Remire clung to his hair and skin, contrasting oddly with the laundered scent of the uniform he’d changed into once you had all returned to the monastery and the astringent scent of the soap he used to wash blood and grime from his hands and face.

Although you half expected it, Dimitri didn’t tell you to stop or to leave. He had barely reacted. Long seconds unfurled into minutes, and the quiet settled around the two of you as a near physical entity.

Alone, together. 

It was in that stagnant silence that his fingers, warm and calloused, sought to find yours where they were curled slightly into his bed’s soft comforter. Dimitri’s touch was tentative, almost awkward, stilted. 

The contact, limited as it was, made your breath freeze. 

Not daring to look straight at Dimitri, your eyes strained to see his forward-facing posture in your periphery. He didn’t look any different, it was as if his hand had moved on its own. Curiously hopeful, you pushed your hand closer to his, your pinky lifting to overlap his. Dimitri stiffened slightly at the relatively bold action, but he didn’t pull away.

It was the barest amount of contact, of intimacy. There was no weighted eye contact or sweet words exchanged, no recognition of the horrors the both of you had witnessed and enacted that day or any attempt to discuss the feelings it had brought up. But, somehow, this felt more important and special than any hug or kiss.

The hand you caressed was one that killed, that destroyed. Even now you were aware of its strength, aware of the metaphorical blood pooling beneath your touch. His was a hand imbued with the divine mandate of destruction. That was Dimitri’s birthright, the legacy left to him by a life of nature-gifted ferocity and nurtured brutality.

After what had happened before the battle at Remire Village, it was no wonder Felix said the things he did about the prince.

But he was still _wrong_. You let out a soft breath at that especially firm thought, closing your eyes to the empty wall and the endless cycle of thoughts it invited, casting Felix and the things he’d said from your mind. Instead, you focused on Dimitri’s fingers, so warm and solid beneath your own. Their strength was not inherently violent. Nature had also given Dimitri the strength to protect, that was an absolute truth. 

And right now, although it wouldn’t last, it was something to cling to. For a fleeting moment, you wondered if Dimitri felt the same, not even beginning to consider the danger of such an extreme if he did.


	6. Sylvain x Reader + Angst to Fluff

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _anonymous said:   
could you do a Sylvain or Felix x reader angst that turns to fluff at the end? Thank you :)___

Of course Sylvain misunderstood your intentions. Of course, after months and months of playful flirting and coy looks, he’d assume that this was why you approached him in the dead of night, knocking on his door with wide eyes and a racing heart. Truthfully, though, you didn’t make a good case to the contrary in the way you melted into the forward caress of his hands, either.

But who could blame you? As the stories always seemed to go, it all happened so fast.

Before you could get your bearings, the opportunity for you to gather the guts to speak was already gone. Once Sylvain made his move, all of your carefully planned thoughts went out the window, lost once you were pinned against the edge of his messy desk. Perhaps he thought he was doing you a service, removing the necessity for your flustered and stilted words to be spoken. There was only one word needed here, and you were certain a ‘yes’ wasn’t far off, becoming more and more clear within the catching foggy haze of desire.

Sure, conflict warred in your mind, unease tickled your spine, but you were only human. Even if your heart was heavy with a thousand built up feelings and an epiphany regarding your true feelings, even though your was tongue clumsy with words you’d been rehearsing, you still wanted him. Sylvain was offering nothing more than a bitter mockery of the romance you dreamed of, the empty regards of the physical touch you yearned for so desperately, but it was still some kind of romance, it was still his touch. After so long of your back and forth flirtations and the feelings you’d found increasingly difficult to ignore, your body craved him, ached for him.

But not like this. 

“Sylvain…” you said, an attempted warning in the whine of your voice. Unconvincing, not helped in the least by the hot feeling the light brush of his lips sent through you as they trailed across your jaw, down your neck. “This isn’t… Isn’t why I came to see you…”

As if utterly oblivious to the discord in your head, the strength it took for you to get out those words, Sylvain laughed. Wet from the open mouthed kisses he’d left across your collarbone, the breath of that laugh was enough to make you shiver. Chills rushed across your skin, reacting to his touch in all the proper ways despite the wrongness of it all.

“Are you sure about that?” he replied playfully, undoing the buttons of your shirt so he could push the neckline aside and expose more of your skin to his southbound lips. “We both knew it was only a matter of time before you got curious.” He ran his lips over where your heart fluttered, make you shudder all over again. “You don’t have to play naive for my sake.”

“I’m not playing,” you said.

“Then relax,” Sylvain soothed, his hands tracing a path down your waist, sliding to your thighs and pushing them further apart to allow him closer. The position forced you to cling to him, allowing his lips to find your ear, his muttered promise raising even more chills, “I’m not gonna do anything you won’t like.”

Breath caught, you very nearly reconsidered, overwhelmed by the temptation to submit, to accept what he would give you. Sylvain was intoxicating, electrifying. It would be easy to be swept up in his lust, cheap as it was.

But you couldn’t.

“No, I wanted to…” You swallowed hard against a throat that suddenly felt swollen, glad that he was close enough that you didn’t have to meet his eyes. “Can we talk? Please, it’s… Important. Sylvain.”

“I’m all ears,” he said, his attention now focused on the buttons of your shirt.

“I-I know you’re seeing other girls, and I know you’re not necessarily one to commit, but I… I don’t want to get involved with you unless-”

Sylvain froze, the sudden tension in his body prompting your words to cut off.

Whether from your tone or from your phrasing, he somehow seemed to understand. And he wasn’t happy about it. Letting out a heavy sigh of what felt uncomfortably like resignation, his eyes rose to meet yours.

“You don’t get it, do you?” Sylvain asked, all traces of a smile gone from his suddenly solemn face.

You weighed those words and his expression, an awful pit of discomfort and regret in your stomach. Maybe you shouldn’t have spoken.

Maybe you shouldn’t have come here.

Maybe, despite the conviction you had felt earlier, your feelings were wrong.

“What don’t I get?” you asked, not wanting to know the answer, but feeling compelled by the inevitability of asking anyway.

“All you’re worth to me is a little bit of fun. We’ve been having fun, haven’t we? I thought that you understood,” Sylvain shook his head, disappointed. He let go of you completely, pulling out of your grip as he stepped back to sit heavily on his bed. His loss left you half sitting on his desk, hair and shirt askew. The absence of his warm body against yours was a cold one, prompting you to tug at your neckline to cover the phantom chills and regain some modesty against the quickly approaching humiliation and pain.

With that shake of his head, you had seen it all collapse inwards. Your friendship, the relationship you had begun to dream of, even the echo of his touch that burned at your skin was now lost to you. Worse, maybe you’d never had a chance at any of it to begin with.

“So what is it that you want, huh?” he asked when you had no response. “I’d hate to leave you disappointed.” Those words landed like a slap, leaving your ears ringing.

“I don’t want anything,” you replied in as hard a tone as you could manage, straightening your skirt and wrapping your arms around yourself like a hug. It was a lie, but there was no way you could voice the thing you did want without lapsing into tears.

“Huh? But you said ‘unless’. It’s okay, you can be honest,” Sylvain said, his voice hard, “Everyone wants something. In my experience that goes double cute girls like you.”

The compliment made you flinch, spoken in such a cold tone. “Is that really what you think of me?”

“I…” Doubt crossed Sylvain’s face as he searched your expression, but was quickly replaced with resolve. “I have to admit, you had me convinced at first. I really did think you were different.” He ran a hand through his messy red hair, looking away from you.

“I guess I thought I was different, too,” you muttered quietly, not trusting your voice to remain steady if you dared to speak louder.

Following the pain came anger, the most predictably agonizing chaser to misery. As horrible as the humiliated burn of rejection and his cruel mentality was, how quickly this had all fallen apart, it wasn’t as if it was truly surprising. You knew, on some level, that this was how Sylvain was from the very beginning. His rejection was validation of your worst fear, that you were just like every other girl. That your friendship had meant nothing.

But, was that really true?

You arms dropped, fists tightening at your sides, the action giving you a scrap of strength to speak at an audible volume. “You know what else I think?” you asked, the words coming before you could think about how wise they really were. “I think you’re lying to yourself… To keep from being hurt. And I think that you can… Can be a real jerk sometimes.” This anger, at him and at yourself, was all you had to keep any semblance of composure about you. You had to cling to it, or else you knew you’d start crying in earnest.

The temperature in the small room rose, Sylvain’s posture becoming rigid despite his feigned relaxed position. “I might be a jerk, but _I’m_ not the liar,” he responded, his expression dark as he looked up at you. “C’mon, be honest. I know other guys who are way better than me. Guys with titles and Crests, do you want me to introduce you to them? You’re such a beautiful girl, I bet they’d fall over themselves to marry you.”

“Other guys?” you repeated, stricken with astonishment. It took time to process in your head, but Sylvain’s words cleared something up for you, at least. “If you think that I like you for your Crest or title, you’re not a jerk, you’re just an idiot.”

“Really,” Sylvain countered, incredulous. “Why else? In case you can’t see-” He spread his arms, as if on display. “I’m no good. I’ve never lied about that, or my intentions.”

“Oh, you_ are_ an idiot!” you cried, throwing your hands up in hurt exasperation, speaking too quickly on the heels of his self-deprecation for your mind to catch up and attempt to censor your thoughts. Sylvain’s eyes widened in reaction, the look of surprise only serving to make you feel more embarrassed. “This… This was a mistake,” you said, your voice hushed in an attempt to over correct your outburst. Tears, finally, were creeping up on you. A mistake. That was the only conclusion that could be gleaned from this mess, ultimately. Your arms wound back around your waist, your face down-turned to hide from him.

“H-hey,” Sylvain said, his voice softened somewhat. “Please, don’t cry-”

“No, it’s fine,” you muttered, hardly audible and shaking your head in a last ditch attempt to clear it. “I _know_ how you are. I never meant for this. I didn’t even like you at first, really. But… But you’re not all bad, you know? Under the jerk persona, you’re strong and brave and kind and… I care about you. Really, I do. I even… I think I love you. I’ve never felt this way before and I…” You couldn’t meet his eyes, couldn’t look at anything besides the floor. “That’s what I came to tell you, but obviously-” An awful cough of a laugh made it up your throat, a humorless sound. What a mess. “I guess I’ll see you tomorrow.” That is, if you didn’t drown in the tears you could feel yourself choking on before then. You turned away, ready to make your escape while you could still control yourself.

Unfortunately, he had other ideas. “No, wait-” Sylvain said, reaching out to grab your wrist and using the advantage of the forced close confines of the small room to pull you back. Without the resistance he was expecting, his grip catching you completely unaware, you toppled towards him.

This time, Sylvain’s touch was awkward and clumsy, neither of you expecting the way you fell against him. The backwards tug had caused you to stumble and land in an undignified sprawl in his lap. Not to mention the elbow you accidentally threw against his ribs, earning yourself an ‘ouch!’ to match your unbecoming cry of surprise.

Still, he caught you from bouncing back to the floor, nearly cradling you against his chest.

“I swear, that was an accident,” Sylvain said, always so quick with damage control. His voice vibrated against your cheek, oddly intimate. “Are you all right?”

“Let me go,” you said, voice pinched and cheeks burning. Tears, either from embarrassment or hurt, were quickly gathering in your eyes, blurring your vision. In an ungainly and halfhearted way, you struggled, but he held fast. Steady.

“I will. But first…” Sylvain paused, as if unsure. You didn’t want to look at him, didn’t want to let him see whatever expression you were making, but you knew he was looking at you. Intently. “Did you mean that?” Vulnerability colored his tone, softened it. His voice wasn’t strong with his patented flirtatious bravado, or cold with simmering steel. He spoke with disbelief.

“Why would I lie?” you asked, hardly audible. The words were meant to be strong, but your unrelenting emotions dictated otherwise.

“I don’t know, I-”

“You’re an _idiot_, Sylvain. Please, let me _go_,” you insisted, emphasizing the words oddly out of the vice that had become your throat. Finally, he released you to scramble and be free from his grasp, twisting upright to sit on the bed next to him and regain control over yourself.

“Just, wait. Before you go, please hear me out. I know I don’t deserve it, but…”

You didn’t respond, not trusting your voice as you tried to calm yourself down with deep breaths. But you didn’t leave, either. Of course you didn’t. Sylvain, thankfully, took that as the silent permission it was.

“When you spoke, I got scared,” he admitted. “Most girls just want me for my title or my Crest, and when I thought that it was the same for you, I… I was the one who made a mistake. I’m sorry, truly I am.” Peeking at him from the corner of your eye, you could see the furrow of Sylvain’s brows, the frowning twist of his lips. It was a look you’d never seen on him. Regret, maybe. Weakness. Somehow, you didn’t doubt the apology.

What a mess.

You sighed, rubbing your reddened face. At least the tears had finally been fought off. For now. “I know.”

“No, I swear that I’m not lyin- Huh?” he said, his prepared counter cut off in confusion.

“I believe you. You’re not a bad person, Sylvain, no matter what anyone says.”

His surprise was palpable in the air between you, almost justifying the pain you felt.

“You say that, but it doesn’t excuse the things I’ve done,” he finally said. Self soothing, he ran a hand through his hair again, not that it could get any messier. “But, if you were being honest about the way you feel, then… I’d like to be the type of man who deserves that. Who deserves you. Even if you want nothing to do with me, one day I _will_ find a way to make it up to you, to earn your forgiveness.” Sylvain spoke with a strange conviction, as if trying to motivate himself just as much as he was trying to convince you. It made your heart flip oddly. “I swear.”

Sylvain could say such awful things, he could be so absolutely clueless, and he probably wasn’t altogether worth the heartache you felt. But, no, those were just things you said to yourself in an attempt to save face. Because, despite all that, you adored him. And that was that.

“You already have my forgiveness,” you said, “I accept your apology.” 

Sylvain’s eyes widened in shock. It was really almost adorable. “What? Really?”

“I’m an idiot, too,” you answered, a wry smile on your lips. “But I haven’t lied to you, Sylvain. I can handle rejection like an adult. You apologized for being unkind, and I forgive you. I’m not going to hold any of this against you, because I… ” You couldn’t say that word, unwanted and ugly, again. But that was fine, it was better this way. You let it drop.

But he didn’t. “Because you…?” 

You winced. Did Sylvain really not get it? “Nothing, forget it.”

“No, what were going to say?”

“Really, nothing, I should-”

“I love you. That’s it, right? You really meant it,” he said.

One of his hands rose to cup your cheek, pulling your face towards his. Sincerity shone in the light brown of his eyes, as did determination. Despite the fact that you knew you looked a wreck, that you were probably making some sort of dumb expression, you didn’t want to look away. 

“You said you believed my apology. Well, will you believe me if I say that I love you, too? Not just because you said it first, or because you’re one of the most beautiful girls I’ve ever had the pleasure to know, but because you’re _you_. I love you.”

“Careful, Sylvain, people will think you’ve gone soft,” you tried to joke, hushed in a completely different way than before. He laughed.

“People can think whatever they want, although maybe it’d be better if we gave them something to talk about.” You didn’t resist as he pulled you closer, brushing the hair away from your face.

“You’re an idiot,” you said, attempting to sound playful but coming off as nothing short of adoring. 

“Yeah, but can I be _your_ idiot?” Sylvain asked, pulling one of your legs over his lap. Bold, but he was kind of a bold person. You held onto him just as tightly, allowing yourself to enjoy the feeling of his body against yours. It was your turn to laugh, unable to contain the giddy excitement his flirtatious earnestness filled you with. Tonight truly had been a whirlwind. The relief was striking. 

“Only if I can be yours.”

“You’ve got yourself a deal,” Sylvain responded, sealing the promise with a kiss.


	7. Felix Missing Reader

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _anonymous said:   
Could you do a Felix x reader where Felix calls their relationship a waste of time but when reader stops seeing Felix, he actually misses them hanging out? Love your work :D___

Felix wasn’t concerned with something so trivial and cheap as romance. That, he knew, was an absolute and undeniable fact. Such frivolous endeavors hardly even crossed his mind, buried by far more important and relevant things such as combat strategy, training, and the very present threat looming over Garreg Mach. Relationships were pointless, distracting, annoying-

And it was your fault he was thinking of such things at all.

It was your fault for infecting his mind, your fault that his shoddy attack was easily knocked aside, that his stance was thrown off and balance corrupted. Felix’s opponent quickly followed up with a series of strikes his dulled reflexes were just barely able to catch, nearly toppling backwards as he played the part of poor defense.

“That was sloppy,” Byleth noted, backing off to allow him to regain balance and catch his breath. Felix lowered his sword and rolled his shoulders, shaking his head in an attempt to rid himself of the inane thoughts that plagued it.

“I know,” he bit out through his teeth, frustration made obvious in the displeased growl. Obviously his attack had been sloppy, anyone with a set of eyes could see that his performance was suffering greatly, but he didn’t need the obvious stated, he_ needed_ to focus. He _needed_ to stop thinking.

“Are you feeling alright?” Byleth asked, either oblivious to his internal struggle or far too perceptive to it. Either option only meant unwanted concern. Very unwanted.

“I’m fine,” Felix snapped, the reaction making the professor blink in subdued surprise. 

That annoyed him, too. Behind that somewhat vacant stare, Felix didn’t doubt that Byleth never struggled with thoughts like his. Yet another infuriating area in which he found himself at a loss compared to the ex-mercenary.

“Something on your mind?” Byleth continued to push, aggravatingly astute as ever. Felix scowled, tension running a harsh current through his shoulders and back no matter how he tried to find a comfortable stance.

“I said I’m fine!” Felix reiterated, voice raised slightly too loud. He quickly recovered, speaking in a more reasonable volume so as to regain some composure. “Enough. Raise your sword, I’d like to try another round.”

Yes, fighting. Fighting was good, fighting was what he knew best. The only thing that mattered to Felix was the rush of blood in his ears and the harsh song of metal clanging against metal, the dance of careful footwork between him and his opponent and the intimacy derived from knowing the mind of the one facing against him and the means to take them down.

Not you. Not your wide, hurt eyes when he told you that he cared nothing for the relationship you desired or the feelings you expressed. You were a fool for getting your hopes up for such a thing with him, anyway! It was hardly his fault. To the very core of his being, Felix was nothing but violence and blood. All he was, and would ever be, was a fighter. To expect anything more was an exercise in futility.

That thought brought solace, or at least quelled the calamity of his mind for the moment. Another fight, that’s all he needed.

“I’m afraid I can’t anymore tonight, I promised to have tea with Ashe,” Byleth said, sheathing their sword.

Felix almost snapped. He could have argued by pointing out how ill suited the late hour was for something as superfluous as a tea party, could have done as the flare of irritation dictated and told Byleth how careless it was to indulge in such an unimportant pastime when threats were boring down on the monastery from every angle and training for disaster was absolutely paramount. 

Instead, he drew his mouth into a silent line. The professor could not be dissuaded from tea, no matter how irrational. Besides, some part of Felix’s brain could acknowledge that the way he felt had nothing to do with his teacher or the way they chose to spend their time, and that the energy he was thrumming with was far too unwieldy to be properly utilized in combat. Felix was restless and upset, and it had nothing to do with losing to Byleth yet again or the lack of proper sparring partner now that they were departing.

It was all _your_ fault. 

“Farewell, then,” Felix forced himself to say. Byleth shot him one last stare, an intensely searching look that made his skin crawl, but merely wished him a good night before leaving. 

Felix wiped a hand across his brow and sighed, scanning his surroundings. The rest of the training grounds was distinctly unappetizing, a scattered array of students who barely knew which end of the sword to hold and withering teachers who had more in common with the dusty tomes in the library than the extraordinary professor. 

All of them seemed so _unimportant_, so _absent_. The feeling Byleth had left in their wake wasn’t loneliness, to even think that Felix felt such a thing was unfounded and ridiculous, but there was something. A void. For the past few weeks, the later hours of the day were ones he’d spent with you. 

He sighed again, resigning himself to going over basic routines in an attempt to clear his head.

Unfortunately, routines like this only brought you to mind. He had taught you how to perform them, how to execute them perfectly, in the way he was taught as a child. You weren’t amazing with the sword, never managing to best him once in the dozens of times the two of you had crossed blades, but you were good enough to be worth his time. Even if you couldn’t win, your defense was enough to make it difficult for him to score any actual victory, and you always tried. That, Felix told himself, was what he missed. A training partner. A valuable resource.

Not romance, not a relationship, not your company. Certainly not your company. It wasn’t as if you were annoying, or even unpleasant, but you were always so positive and happy, it was unnatural. It didn’t even make sense that you want to be around him. There had to be something more to it, and Felix had far more important things to worry about than your motives or feelings. Hundreds of more valuable thoughts to entertain than that of tears forming in your eyes, your bottom lip trembling as you tried to play off your reaction to his rejection. Or that smile, weak and false and infuriating because even after he hurt you, you tried to tell him it was okay, that you understood, but you didn’t. How could you, soft and excitable and hopelessly naive, possibly understand what he was?

Felix finally fell still when muscle memory failed him midway through a footwork exercise he’d had memorized since before he could remember, a frustrated sound that could only be classed as a growl making its way from his throat. This was useless, his movements were all wrong, made awkward by an uncomfortable stiffness lodged in his limbs and an ungainly inability to find good footing. 

Irritable and unhappy, Felix admitted defeat. There was nothing for it, really. Sloppy form, terrible balance, mediocre attacks, all because of his whirling thoughts and inability to focus. Because he was weak.

All because of you. 

What _nonsense_.


	8. Claude POV + Jealousy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _anonymous said:_   
_hey! if you’re still taking fire emblem requests, can i request claude getting jealous or annoyed because the reader is getting confessed to by a lot of students?_

**This is from Claude’s perspective, which might have been a bad call because that boy can be quite the mental enigma, BUT I tried my best and really what else can you ask for. Aside from quality, please don’t ask for that. **

-

“Feeling jealous, Claude?” Hilda asked in a sugary tone, her elbows braced in an unladylike fashion on the tabletop and chin dropped lazily into the cup of her palm. Claude lowered the book he hadn’t really been reading, looking over at the girl he’d only been half aware of since her uninvited arrival at his table in the corner of the library. He measured her words for a moment, trying to decide if she was borrowing from his repertoire by trying to make her own entertainment out of his lackluster conversational skills, or if she as leading into something with the taunting question. Either way, he supposed it was better than his current fruitless endeavors.

Across the room, the noble doing his very best to charm you laughed. Claude resisted the urge to allow the sound to distract him. He did notice, through no fault of his own other than a set of good ears, that you did not laugh in return.

“How do you figure?” Claude asked Hilda, deciding to humor her with an easy smirk. Better than allowing her baseless question to stand. She sighed and rolled her eyes, as if the accusation was so self evident that explaining it was a chore, but her glee that that he’d taken the bait was evident.

“Your little dancer has been stolen away from you.” Her gaze flicked towards the table where you sat with the newest suitor in the lineup that had begun shortly after your breathtaking, and winning, performance for the White Heron Cup. Hilda’s expression shifted away from amusement. “Or should I say, stolen away from _us_. I blame the professor, he should have known that a girl like her would get all dizzy and confused with the spotlight on her like this. Me on the other hand…”

“Now who’s jealous?” Claude teased lightly, raising an eyebrow.

“Jealous?” Hilda asked incredulously with a grand show of affront, her delicate eyebrows furrowing. “No, I’m _worried_,” she said, stressing the word heavily. “I mean, look at her!”

Claude’s gaze followed Hilda’s gesture towards your table, not that he needed the aid for his eyes drawn to the scene. It was much the same as it had been for the last quarter hour. Study material spread out on the table around you as you attempted to help one of the more devious boys who had maneuvered past your defenses with a backhanded tactic of asking for a tutor rather than a date. The real question was if you were truly too naive to see his true motives, or if your awkward handling of his flirtations and strict adherence to the charade of studying were an attempt at deflection. Either way, the overwhelming awkwardness made for an exceptionally difficult watch.

Of course, Claude found it nearly impossible to look away. In part, he could chalk it up to the incredibly inconvenient place for this little tryst. Libraries were _sacred_, meant to be peaceful environments. But, watching you squirm and flush ignited another, more private kind of annoyance; he had tried so hard to figure out a way to get under your skin, it was almost cheap how easy the various hopefuls managed it when he had been consistently unsuccessful. Not that he enjoyed your distress. Well, not when he wasn’t the one who had figured out how to instigate it.

“Not everybody can handle the spotlight,” Hilda said, dragging Claude from his thoughts. “Poor thing. I wouldn’t have minded working a little harder if it meant I could shelter her from that terrible burden.”

“How noble of you,” Claude responded dryly.

“It is, isn’t it,” Hilda agreed with a hint of surprise at her own behavior, either unaware of or ignoring his sarcasm. Claude was inclined to think the latter. “Anyway, I was thinking that since we agree that she doesn’t seem very happy about things and you’re already over here skulking about it anyway-”

“Woah, I am _not _skulking-”

Hilda bullied past Claude’s somewhat indignant denial, continuing without pause, “You could go over there and scare him off.”

“And how do you propose I do that?” Claude asked, deciding that trying to argue the finer details wasn’t worth it.

“Oh, you know,” Hilda said, waving her hand in a way that managed to be both flippant and graceful. “I’m sure if _you_ go over there, he’ll remember something very important that he needs to leave for. My brother used to do that all the time to scare off boys.”

“Uh huh… And once her schedule’s cleared, maybe she’ll remember that you agreed to help you with… Kitchen duty, was it?” Claude asked.

Hilda stiffened, doing a good job of feigning indignation and confirming his suspicions. It had been a long shot to assume Hilda would do something solely out of the goodness of her heart, he supposed. “That is so not the point! I’m really worried about her!” She paused, a crease appearing in the center between her eyebrows. “She’s a little bit _too_ nice, I’m really afraid that those boys will take advantage of her.”

“But it’s okay if you do?”

“I would never!” Hilda exclaimed, mimicking shock at the very idea. “I actually care about her. If she wants to help me, it’s only because she cares about me too.”

There was a flaw in that logic that Claude didn’t feel like pointing out, mainly because Hilda still had a point. For all of your skills and abilities, you stank of awkward inexperience. It could be endearing in its own way, but it called into question your ability to avoid danger even if you were fully capable of sensing it. People like Hilda and him could wear their masks no matter the circumstance, but you weren’t accustomed enough to attention to keep it up in unfamiliar circumstances. Plus, the nobleman had scooted at least a foot and a half closer to you in the time since he’d sat down, and Claude didn’t like the possessive way he casually touched you.

“Why don’t you go over there?” Claude finally asked, more out of a sense of obligatory obstinance than a belief he could convince Hilda otherwise. “I’m sure you’re far more familiar with managing a complicated love life than I am.”

“No way. Trust me, the only way to get a guy like that to back down is if another man scares him off,” Hilda explained matter-of-factly. Claude wasn’t sure how he felt about that logic, unable to decide if Hilda truly believed it, or if she was just trying to avoid the labor of conflict.

“All right, all right, I get it,” Claude relented. “I suppose I’ll see what I can do, although if it backfires and she gets upset I’m blaming it on you.”

“Oh come on, you’re so charming and charismatic, there’s no way she’ll be mad at you! And once you rescue her, you’ll be her hero.” Hilda stood up and stretched, as if talking him into doing as she wanted had been an especially taxing task. “Anyway, I know you’ll do great, so I’ll get going now. Remember to remind her of her promise. Four thirty in the kitchen.” She smiled, and with a dainty wave, Hilda departed from the library, twintails swinging behind her in a rosy trail.

Claude sighed, knowing he’d been played. Then again, he didn’t exactly relish to trying to get through another heavily edited and censored version of a historical look at Heroes Relics while listening to your date laugh and coo over you, it was hard enough to read without. If Seteth stocked the library with books any drier, Claude was sure there’d be a ban on open flame anywhere on the second floor out of fear for the libraries stock of excellent kindling.

He dropped the book and stood, stretched, then made his way over to your table, slow and easy.

“-the ball,” the boy was saying quietly to you, having moved closer than ever. “I’d be honored to have such a fluid and graceful creature on my arm such as you, perhaps you could even teach me-”

“This seat taken?” Claude asked with a smile, pulling out a chair and sitting down next to you regardless of the answer.

You broke from your oh-so diligent student to look at Claude with wide eyes. Not the slightly panicked gaze you gave the various boys when they confessed or flirted with you, but the searching one he knew all too well. Surprised, vaguely defensive, and a touch piercing. He savored it now, especially in contrast to the icy glare the man looking past your shoulder was leveling at him.

“I’m sorry, but this is a _private_ session,” the boy said, pompous and lacking any of the slimy charm he’d used to speak to you with.

“I was hoping I could join in, actually. I’ve been having problems with-” Claude glanced down at the papers and books strewn across the table. “-the real life applications of chemistry.” 

Just saying that made him smirk. This stuff was basic when compared the things he’d taught himself, material more suited to a child. Or a noble who had never had any need to learn such things and wanted an excuse to get closer to a pretty girl.

“Are you?” you asked, obviously not believing him. For a moment, Claude was half sure you’d turn him away just to be difficult, but then you shrugged. “I suppose I don’t mind. Theo and I were going over the properties and uses of plants found in the south.”

“Oh, great! Awfully important stuff, that. No wonder the two of you looked so intense,” Claude said. You stiffened slightly, but Theo’s lips merely formed a thin line.

“I’m afraid I find it difficult to learn properly in group settings,” Theo said rigidly. Despite the fact he his words were pointedly aimed at Claude, there was something distinctly territorial about the way he moved closer to you, his hand on the back of your chair. Hilda had said that he’d run at seeing another man, but Claude saw something else. This Theo didn’t see you as a girl, but as something to possess, and he didn’t want some suspicious outsider to take that away. It was petty enough to make Claude’s stomach turn.

“For me personally, I think it’s easiest to learn with other people,” Claude said, not allowing himself to look affected. “Especially chemistry, you practically _need_ other people to really study this stuff.”

“Is that so?” Theo asked. You frowned at Claude, as if you already knew what he was going to say. He said it anyway.

“Sure,” Claude answered easily, as casual as could be. “I daresay test subjects are important to most of the sciences. Hey, maybe with a bit of experimentation we could come up with something to ease your nerves. You looked pretty nervous before I got here. Makes a guy wonder about what you might have been asking my friend here…”

“It was of little significance to you,” Theo responded stiffly.

“I’m sure it wasn’t,” Claude’s voice was smooth. Smug. He could tell his words had an effect, even if Theo was slow to relent.

“Actually, we were discussing the ball,” you said, pulling both boy’s surprise. “I was just about to explain to Theo that all of us deer are all going stag,” you finished, face deadly serious. It took a moment, but Claude saw the slight twitch of your lips at the joke. It was so bad it wrapped back around to clever. He had to stifle a laugh.

“Is that so?” Theo asked. He either hadn’t got the double meaning, or that stick was well and truly that far up his butt. “Well, apologies for the abruptness, but I believe it’s time for me to take my leave now.” He said, attempting and mostly successful in returning to his slimy charm in bidding you farewell, sparing you an awkward hand kiss and all. Theo shot one last glare for Claude, but left. How charming.

Claude let out a laugh as soon as the pompous noble was out of sight. At the bad joke, but also at expense of poor Theo. After a second, you joined in. If Claude felt any smug glee in hearing your laugh, he didn’t dwell on it.

“That was terrible,” Claude eventually said, forcing his voice into a lower volume to avoid more glares from those nearby.

“I thought it was clever,” you said, your shoulders relaxing somewhat. You were more relaxed around him, but in a way you were also more guarded. “Besides, I’m not the terrible one, you are. Threatening to poison the boys I talk to… What are you, my keeper?” you asked. Cutting words, but there was still a layer of levity to them. 

Still, he frowned. “That hurts, truly,” Claude responded, a hand over his heart and brows scrunched in unhappiness. “Besides, I wasn’t threatening him. I wouldn’t dare poison a boy you obviously care for so deeply.”

Now your face twisted in disgust. “I don’t care for him,” you said with just a touch more force than necessary. Then you paused, shrugged. “He said he’d pay me to tutor him, and I didn’t think anything of it…” You sighed, shaking your head with a frown. Your cluelessness was a tad pitiful, but in a cute way. At the same time, Claude disdained it. 

“It’s a terrible burden to be so popular, isn’t it?” he asked, his sarcastic tone unintentionally verging on sardonic, the bitterness surprising even him. You looked up, eyes narrowing and that look of weariness fading away. They weren’t the wide eyes of discomfort and awkwardness, like with the poor Theo, but focused with a sort of fire. Claude didn’t exactly mind it. His comment, stinking of something he dared not called jealousy, obviously got under your skin.

For a moment, it looked as if you were going to admonish him, but that passed as the fire burned out. 

“You’re just jealous,” you accused primly, turning your face away from him in a rather pointed manner to gather up the paper and books strewn across the table top.

Claude disliked hearing that word from you even more than he disliked hearing it from Hilda, finding himself without an immediate retort as he considered if you were joking or not. He wondered if there was a way to argue, to express the definite lack of jealousy in his displeasure while watching you and that noble fop laughing and flirting. Then again, if you _were_ joking, even a playful argument would make him look guilty. Claude didn’t like to gamble with uncertain odds.

Fortunately, you saved him the roll of the dice. “I guess it’s fine anyway, the whole thing was a waste of time. I _should_ thank you,” you said softly. 

The minute tension in Claude’s posture eased. “Actually, you should thank Hilda,” he said, playing his relief off with a practiced casualness. “She said that you looked uncomfortable and in dire need of assistance. I guess she’s familiar with those types of situations.”

“Hilda _asked_ you?” you asked with a slight air of disbelief, looking up from organizing the papers to glance around the library, as if the girl would be lounging around somewhere among the books.

“Apparently,” Claude said, almost regretfully, “You agreed to help with her kitchen duty today.” 

You paused, thinking. “I did didn’t I… I forgot about that… At the forth bell, right?” you asked.

“Afraid so,” Claude responded. 

You winced, shaking your head and returning to organizing all of your papers and books with more urgency. Claude was amazed by the sheer volume. It looked like you were taking on even more extracurricular work than him, most of the books on subjects the professor wasn’t covering in class. He hadn’t noticed that before, but it was strange.

“If it helps any, she did seem sincerely worried. She just has an odd way of showing it,” Claude said in a halfhearted defense. That wasn’t a lie, really. Hilda just had an unique way of showing her concern. By now, however, you probably knew that.

“And what about you?” you asked, peering over at him as he tried to surreptitiously read the spines of all the books you had.

“Huh… Me?” Claude asked, looking away quickly, and somewhat guiltily, to meet your eyes. They were searching and more than a little difficult to read, your mood having shifted entirely without his notice.

“I mean, you’re not one to do things without a reason. So why, truly?”

Truly? What truth did you want, he wondered. What were you really asking with this sudden shift in tone? If Claude didn’t know any better, which he really didn’t, he’d suppose that you were looking for a very specific answer. If only he knew what that answer was.

“Oh no, not me. Saving you from the clutches of some slobbering nobleman was completely altruistic,” Claude responded without missing a beat, opting for neutrality rather than trying to solve the puzzle of the female mind. Wearing an easy smile, he leaned back in his chair casually. “But I guess I did get some entertainment. And a bad joke, too. Not a bad deal if you ask me.”

It wasn’t a lie, not really, but it wasn’t the ‘truly’ truth you wanted. Not that Claude was entirely sure what you _did_ want. Unfortunately, that was the way those things went. Especially where you were concerned. 

“It wasn’t a bad joke,” you muttered as you looked away, obviously unhappy about more than the comment as you packed up the rest of your things. Claude tried to engage you further, but it was clearly a lost cause. By the time you left, the forth bell chiming happily, he was actually grateful to return to the awful book he’d dropped. At least the words were coherent. Well, most of them. And he had an actual figure to be mad at; in this case being the terrible author who’d written the senseless book or Seteth for thinking it was worth keeping; rather than imagining any given faceless boy who wore you on his arm like some sort of prize. 

Not that he was jealous, because he _wasn’t_, but because he still found himself unable to understand you. And there was nothing more enticingly annoying than that.


	9. (yan!Dimitri verse) Discussing the White Heron Ball

“I’m certain at least one of these books will contain a battle strategy usable by the fewest units possible, but I can’t seem to remember which,” Dimitri said, his back to you as he skimmed the spines of the dozens of books shelved in the Knights Hall.

You hummed in vague agreement, having hardly heard his words. Your mind was miles away, a handful of days ahead and dozing with far off thoughts of proper footwork and music, of everyone together under the warm chandelier lights, dressed up and dancing and momentarily careless. From the informal perch you’d taken on the edge of the table, your legs swung back and forth to a waltz rhythm, a sort of mock practice of your fantasy.

“At the very least, I recognize the name the Professor referenced. A famous strategist from Brigid…” Dimitri trailed off, and although his back to you, you could sense his frown. He was being a good student and looking up the military strategy you were meant to study for class, and had even been kind enough to offer his help. The problem was that you had far more pressing matters to keep your mind occupied, so you hummed again in assent, his words falling on deaf ears.

It wasn’t just you, either. Ever since the White Heron Ball had been announced, Garreg Mach had been thick with an air of excitement. Everyone was abuzz with enthusiasm about the event, even those who claimed disinterest in such things. Perhaps it was the change of pace to something positive that captured everyone’s attention so thoroughly, the ball being a happy distraction from the woes that had befallen the academy recently, but you couldn’t say you minded. It was the opposite, actually.

If only you could get a certain someone to join in. Not only was the ball coming up, but Dimitri’s birthday was approaching as well. He seemed stiffly stoic in his dismissal of both, spending half his time utterly distracted by school or training and the other half stewing in angry thoughts about the injustice of what had happened at Remire village and the foes who had escaped.

Of course, attempting to draw him into the festivities wasn’t entire selfless. You had your own thoughts you’d rather not dwell on. Remire inevitably brought to mind that dark evening you and Dimitri had spent together in that void of suspended time. Those quietly intimate hours had gone unacknowledged on his end, but you couldn’t so easily forget about it. Still, even if you had the confidence to bring it up, you knew better than to remind him of that day in any capacity. It was better to leave things as they were, better to try and forget the warmth you had felt when your hands overlapped. Better to pretend nothing had changed.

In that, the two of you were the same. You distracted yourself with occasionally forced positivity, and he by throwing himself fully into the project at hand, by feigning an air of normalcy to deal with the mundane task of school work. 

But understanding didn’t amount to your approval of his methods. Dedue noted that Dimitri wasn’t sleeping, that his headaches were getting worse. Although you didn’t have the entire story, you knew it had something to do with the Tragedy of Duscur. The horrors of Dimitri’s past and the loss of his family and everyone he cared about clung to him like a bitter shadow, and Remire had dredged all of that up. Yes, you understood as best you could, but it just wasn’t healthy. Everyone needed some levity, some distraction. This month was supposed to be better, but you could see the darkness that followed Dimitri, feel it thick in the air even when he was distracted. You badly wanted to raise Dimitri’s mood, to pull him into the light with everyone else.

As if to reflect that, your idle fantasy fed you the new idea of Dimitri dancing with you rather than some faceless suitor. Despite his status and the aspects of propriety it dictated, you found it difficult to imagine the prince dancing, or perhaps it was imagining him having the desire to dance that eluded you, especially with his recent behavior. Still, the idea of his hand on your waist and the other clasped in yours as you twirled around the ballroom wasn’t unappealing. On the contrary, you found yourself more entranced with that thought than you should have been, enough to make your face warm as you wondered what it would feel like to have his calloused hand engulfing yours entirely.

“Dimitri?” you asked, shaking away the threads of that particular fantasy before it devolved into anything dangerous.

“Yes?” he responded, glancing at you over his shoulder.

“Can you dance?”

Dimitri half turned towards you with a surprised expression, obviously caught off guard by the sudden question. You smiled innocently in case he was frustrated about your lack of interest in the assignment, but that didn’t seem to be the case. It actually seemed as if you’d unintentionally said something wrong.

“I know how to, yes,” he responded stiffly, turning away from you to shelf a book. “It’s been a long time, however. I imagine my skills are quite rusty.”

There was something more to that answer, obviously, but you weren’t sure if you were meant to ask. Silence dragged a bit as you considered what to say in response, caught between confused curiosity about the stilted awkwardness he spoke with and voicing an apology for having brought it up at all.

Before you did either, a familiar voice cut through the awkward quiet, surprising you enough to nearly knock you off your seat. Well, table. “Oh come on, Your Highness, there’s no way you’ll get out of at least one dance. It is tradition, after all.” Sylvain, having appeared from what seemed like thin air, sidled up to Dimitri, leaning in conspiratorially and lowering his voice. “Besides, girls love a guy who can sweep them off their feet. There has to be someone who’s caught your eye…” He paused, looking over at you for a brief second. Perhaps in reaction to your surprise, his smile became even more devious and voice even softer. “I bet I can guess who it is, too.”

Dimitri’s awkwardness evolved into fairly obvious embarrassment at Sylvain’s words, and you could feel yourself catching the emotion. A girl who had caught Dimitri’s eye. Somehow, that thought made your stomach twist uncomfortably, unhappily.

“Sylvain…” Dimitri said, discomfort straining his voice and adding an edge of a warning to the name. He shot a quick glance your way, as if to sheepishly check your reaction, before narrowing his eyes at the unapologetic redhead.

“I was kidding, try to lighten up a little, Your Highness,” Sylvain responded, backtracking beneath Dimitri’s glare. “And what about you?” Sylvain continued, turning away from Dimitri to face you, his smile back in place. “You know how to dance, don’t you? I hope you’ll save one for me. I wouldn’t want to boast too much, but I promise that I’ll be the best partner you’ll ever have.” He winked, smiling at your uncertainly awkward reaction.

“Sylvain,” Dimitri repeated. The harshness of his tone surprised you. It seemed to take Sylvain aback as well. Dimitri visibly forced himself to relax, to loosen up and lighten his voice. “Was there something you needed?”

“Yeah, there is,” Sylvain said, the playful demeanor slipping and his hands rising to show his innocence. “I wanted to ask if you found the material the professor wanted us to look at for the test, but then I heard you talking about dancing and, well…” His smile resurfaced. “Anyway, I was thinking we could all study together.” Sylvain tilted his head to look directly at you, his smile becoming lopsided in a look that was most definitely charming. “Or maybe you’d be interested in some one-on-one studying. Believe it or not, I’m pretty good at this sort of thing. You and I could grab some tea together… Or we could head to my room for a little bit of privacy-”

He cut himself off before continuing with that thought, looking back at Dimitri. What he saw made the smile fall, and you didn’t blame him. Dimitri’s intimidating glare had returned, an unnerving expression on his face as he stared Sylvain down. Unnatural was the word Felix had used about Dimitri’s behavior. Unnatural certainly described that look. Sylvain, as casual as he tried to play it off, looked genuinely uncomfortable. He laughed and rubbed the back of his head.

“Calm down, Your Highness. It was just a joke, it wasn’t like I was being serious or anything.” He paused, sighing when the mood didn’t lighten up any. “Guess I’ll try my luck at the library.”

“If you are able to conduct yourself in a polite and respectful manner, I’d be more than happy to help you with finding the material the Professor assigned us to read,” Dimitri said. The dark expression was gone, his tone forced into a normal, if stiltedly awkward, cadence. 

“Thanks, but I’ll pass,” Sylvain responded, an easy veneer of breeziness brushed over his words and the tension therein. “There’s a really cute girl who works in the library. She’ll definitely help me out if I ask the right way.” He looked at you, his lips quirking again. “Don’t forget about that dance, okay? I’ll be counting on at least one.” With a final wink, Sylvain turned and left the Knight’s Hall. Your feet weren’t swinging anymore as you watched him go.

Mostly you just felt conflicted and confused, as if you’d missed out on half the conversation. Not to mention his implication that Dimitri was interested in someone. For a split second, the Professor came to mind; the beautiful, talented, and mysterious professor, and the amount of time she and Dimitri spent together; but you tried to dismiss the thought. It didn’t matter. It wasn’t your business, either.

“I feel as if I should apologize for Sylvain’s behavior,” Dimitri said, calling your attention back to him shaking his head, placing his fingers against the bridge of his nose. His shoulders were more relaxed, at least. “I’m sure you’re accustomed to it by now, but I hope you don’t take his words too seriously. Sylvain means no harm, but his judgement can be somewhat… Problematic when it comes to women.” Dimitri’s eyes opened, his hand dropping from his face. “I’d like to say I trust him not to do anything that would hurt you, but… Perhaps it’d be better if you didn’t get too close to him.” 

“I’m sure it’s not _that_ bad,” you said slowly. “I think he really was just joking.” For reasons you didn’t dare to consider right then, you hoped very much that Sylvain had been just joking.

“He has a tendency to leave a trail of broken hearts in his wake. I’d hate to see you become one of many,” Dimitri told you. His blue gaze wasn’t stern or unnerving, but entirely uncompromising against yours as he spoke. The somewhat cruel assessment of his friend was given in a completely matter-of-fact tone. “I won’t insist, of course, but I advise you to keep a distance. Not that I think you’re incapable of holding your own, nor do I believe Sylvain to be a bad person, but…”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” you replied, managing to put on a reassuring smile. Perhaps you could see where he was coming from, Ingrid had certainly warned you away from Sylvain often enough to make you hesitant. Not that you believed the man could do anything to effectively woo you. Dimitri, at the very least, looked relieved by your words.

“That’s all I could ask.”

He turned back to the bookcase, staring down the dozens of spines and titles embossed upon them, shining with the dancing firelight. He began to pick through them once more, no further acknowledgement given to what had just transpired. The temptation to ask if they had been in a fight or something left you as well, chased away by your unwillingness to recall that dark expression onto Dimitri’s face and the seeds of unhappiness Sylvain had planted in your mind.

Those things were best dismissed, it was better if you could lighten things up. Be positive. You could be positive, ignore your discomfort. Dimitri had been teetering on the precarious precipice of rationality for awhile now, and it was up to his friends to ensure he didn’t fall into the darkness. Not again, at least.

“So…” you began in a light tone, more out of a need to fill the silence than with any clear goal of subject. As soon as you’d gotten that word out, however, the rest of them composed themselves in your mind. A question.

“Yes?” Like before, Dimitri looked over his shoulder at you, a lock of blond hair falling across his face before he brushed it away absently. Somehow, the sight stunned you. The warm depth the dancing hearth fire added to his flaxen hair, the way it affected the blue of his eyes and blushed the porcelain white of his skin. It wasn’t as if it was a secret that he was attractive, but that realization struck you anew with that casual look.

The question lingered on your tongue, begging to be spoken as you met that soft blue gaze. It was a simple question, one that Sylvain had just asked you without any of the stuttering butterflies you felt in your stomach. But this was different. Incredibly different. Asking him for a dance should have been simple, but it certainly wasn’t. Not with him, not with the pounding, racing of your heart when he looked at you right then. Too long passed with an odd doubt gnawing away at your gut, and bravery failed you completely. You couldn’t be so bold, not with the looming idea Sylvain had given you of him favoring another girl. You wouldn’t insert yourself into that with your treacherous intentions, wouldn’t risk this friendship, wouldn’t risk Dimitri while he needed a friend.

“Thank you for helping me with this, I’d never know where to begin if I had to do it alone,” you said, forcing a tight smile and avoiding his eyes by picking up one of the books sitting beside you on the table.

“Of course,” Dimitri responded. He obviously knew you’d meant to say something else, leaving a current of tension between you and a stiff posture to his back, but he didn’t comment on it. “I’m always happy to help.”


	10. Yandere-ish Sylvain

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I bet you all thought I forgot. I did, actually. Sorry about that. As usual, this is all posted from my tumblr so I just forget.
> 
> Note: The commons room doesn’t have a fire. I don’t know why, but I thought it did. It makes more sense if it did, unless the monastery has some sort of centralized heating we’re all unaware of. Whatever. It’s romantic.

A comfortable quiet had settled, one lent security by the cheery crackling of the fire and the company of a book in your hands. Everyone had dispersed after the war council, scattering to their various places in the monastery, but you hadn’t gone far, finding a perfectly comfortable reading spot in the commons right next door. As opposed to the library, the chairs in here were decently plush, perfect for a few hours of reading.

So read you did. The book wasn’t about war or turmoil. It wasn’t even a particularly good book. Love stories were always so predictable, but maybe that’s why you liked them. Knowing the ending before facing it had its own sort of value while you yourself were caught up in such uncertainty.

Or, possibly, you were secretly one of those hopeless romantics. That would explain some things. Namely, the things you were trying so desperately to distract yourself from, but those were far better ignored. You forced your eyes to continue to move across the passages, page by page, devouring line after line of sappy dialogue and flowery prose.

_“Here you stand my sun drenched nymph, your flaxen hair aglow. If I could not taste the sweet honeysuckle in the air as I breath, doubtless I would believe you to be naught more than a maddening fantasy,” Lord Willem said, his voice soft in the sacred gardens, a rainbow of blooms framing his decadent visage. “But it is you, always you. My darling Clara.”_

_“Lord Willem,” the girl breathed out, her pink, petal-like lips parted and tears sparkling in her fetching sapphire orbs._

_“Run away with me, my darling. Allow me to bask in your splendid radiance a just a second longer. Allow me that, and I shall die a happy man indeed.” The lord, his ochre gaze one of unending tenderness, held a hand out to his beloved Clara, adoration ringing in his dulcet tones. “For I, humble I with my clumsy words and worthless fortune, I-”_

“Whatch’ya reading?”

The shock of a voice interrupting what was meant to be a grand romantic confession in novel format made you jump, body going tense and eyes shooting upward. At the same time your brain recognized that it was only Sylvain, sitting in the chair opposite yours, it also recognized the thump of your book falling from your hands to the floor. Now it laid in a splay of pages at your feet, the spine slightly bent. Without a bookmark.

“You scared me,” you told him, only a hint of the reprimand he deserved curling around the lightly breathless accusation. Sylvain laughed, leaning back into the chair with his arms behind his head. Letting out a sigh at the idea of going through the entire novel to find the exact page you had been on, you scooped up your fallen book. It was only with that movement that you realized how stiff your body was, back sore from being in the same position too long and eyes strained. How late had it gotten?

“I didn’t mean to interrupt, I thought you would have heard me come in,” Sylvain told you, sounding at least mostly contrite.

You could have been more upset, but you couldn’t muster up the energy for that. Too much of your mind was curious, and a bit nervous. It had been awhile since the two of you had spoken privately. He looked slightly nervous, too, and a little tired. You couldn’t help but notice those things, no more than you could help noticing that the color scheme of the room suited the virtues of his striking cherry bright hair. Firelight dyed him in flickering oranges and reds, and the steady golden yellow from your candle lamp added a bit of depth. It scattered especially sharp shadows across his face, and the pale surface of his skin was easily persuaded into taking on the tint of the warm tones, but also the darker shadows.

“I guess I was pretty… Distracted,” you gave him, setting the book aside to give yourself something to do other than stare.

Weeks. It had been weeks of this crazy war-torn frenzied world since you’d been alone with him. Curiosity pushed you to ask Sylvain outright why he was here, but another part of your mind was trepidatious, not wanting to push him away if he was finally talking to you again.

“Must be some book.” There was a question in that statement, even in Sylvain didn’t voice it, you saw the slight raise of his brow and obvious intention. Somewhat defensively, you turned the embossed spine away from his prying gaze.

“It’s… Nothing,” you said, frowning at the reminder of what you’d been reading. Out of all the things to be the subject of conversation after so long. “You’ll laugh,” you amended.

“No I won’t,” Sylvain said, just a touch too earnest. Falling right back into the friendly routine the two of you had shared before his sudden cold shoulder. Mostly. There was something off, something overly casual about the way he spoke. Regardless, you found yourself falling back into it as well, pursing your lips and imagining what his response would honestly be. If anyone were to be well versed in tasteless romance books, it would be him.

“You will. Definitely.”

“I promise I won’t laugh,” Sylvain told you, placing a hand to his chest and sitting up straight, the picture of innocence. Then he paused. “Unless it’s something bad…” He leaned forward conspiratorially, elbows on his knees. “Is it something bad?”

“No!” you denied, more defensive than ever and embarrassment flaring at what ‘bad’ might mean. Genuinely, this time. “It’s just… It’s a romantic story. ‘The Sweet Seduction of Lady Savelle’.” The title alone was embarrassing enough to make you cringe. It wasn’t so bad that it was a romance novel, more that it was of such a trashy type, a far cry from the elaborate poetry you would generally consume and discuss.

“Romance?” Sylvain, rather than laughing, seemed caught off guard.

“You said you wouldn’t make fun of me!”

“No, I’m not! It’s just…” he trailed off, scratching the back of his head offhandedly. “I didn’t think you’d be too interested in that sort of thing.” The awkwardness returned, the stiff sensation of unspoken questions hanging between you.

“Guess I ran out of all the good stuff,” you excused yourself with a forcefully casual shrug.

He said nothing after a nod of understanding, which was almost worse than the mockery you had feared. It was awkward. Sylvain was hardly ever awkward, hardly ever without a grandiose line. Now he seemed utterly bereft, as unsure as you felt.

“Romance, like, the real kind, has been on my mind as of late.” The admission was an attempt to fill the silence, but the words came out with a bit more bitter honesty than you intended. Awfully revealing, giving away a concern you’d harbored by yourself for awhile.

“Really?” Sylvain asked in turn, nothing more. Not mockingly. You checked his face, but you couldn’t see any indication that he was messing with you.

“Well, yeah. The war is going to end soon, win or lose, and assuming we pull through… Well, my father has recently reminded me that I should probably be thinking about my future. And who I spend it with.” Those words tasted foul in your mouth, the same taste that numbed your tongue when you had first read the letter. Trying to lighten the tone, to rid yourself of that flavor, you gestured to your book. “Although I don’t think Clara and Lord Willem will be much help. They’re almost comically verbose about this stuff, I doubt any man would be able to even understand my confession if I spoke like they do.”

Sylvain didn’t laugh. Then again, neither did you. Things had changed in the weeks you hadn’t spoken. Your candor was unwanted.

“I guess it depends on who you’re trying to get,” Sylvain said with only a lip service attempt at levity. His eyes trailed upwards, one hand going to his face as if he was thinking intently. When he spoke, it was with a tone of casually framed bitterness, “You’ve got a good selection here, some of the most powerful men of the kingdom… Oh, and the ones the professor recruited from the alliance and empire. Not to mention all the rich and titled men who’ll probably fall at your feet once we’ve won. I mean, who _wouldn’t_ want such a beautiful and heroic girl like you as their bride?”

Something about his tone rankled you. The harsh edges of what he was implying by writing off your search for a partner as a transactional affair was just like that of your father’s letter. You should have known that bringing up a topic like this to Sylvain would end poorly, doubly so when considering his behavior towards you recently.

“It’s not like that,” you told him, an obvious invitation to stop.

“No, it’s fine,” Sylvain said, overly bright in his assurance. Strangely energetic despite how awkward he had been only a moment before. “I just want you to be happy, you know? I don’t-”

“I said that its not like that!” you cut in sharply, meeting his eyes.

“Oh? What _is_ it like?” Sylvain challenged, a question you hadn’t at all expected, despite the obvious opening for it.

“I don’t know,” you said, running a frustrated hand over your head, a fruitless attempt to soothe yourself. “Just forget it, please.”

“No, I really would love to help you. I know a lot about this stuff, I’m practically an expert when it comes to the matters of the heart.” There was nothing friendly about his acerbic tone.

“I know you’re sensitive about these things. I’m sorry for bringing it up and upsetting you, okay?” you said, trying to remain calm despite your rising temper.

“Upset? I’m not upset.”

“You obviously are,” you pushed flatly, voice raised just a touch too loud. “Anyway, I said I’m sorry, so can you just forget it?”

“Forget it?” Sylvain repeated after a pause. “Sure, yeah, I’m sorry too. I knew something like this would happen eventually, but…” He shook his head, an oddly jittery movement.

You waited. Waited for him to continue, or to break the tension, or for something, _anything_, but it was without reward.

“But…?” you finally prompted, voice quiet. That seemed to catch Sylvain’s attention, pulling it back towards you. For the first time, you realized that maybe that wasn’t what you wanted.

“You’re the only girl I’ve ever wanted like this, you know?” Sylvain said in a burst, speaking with an uncharacteristic restlessness, leaning forward again.

You stiffened at the sudden confession, a shock of surprise running up your spine at the whiplash of the topic shift.

“Sometimes it’s… _You’re_ all I can think about. Honestly, it’s driving me crazy.” Sylvain paused there, almost seeming surprised by his own confession. Then he laughed. Not the nervous type of laughter that rang with the beating of anxious butterfly wings as they fluttered in one’s stomach, and not the devious type that would indicate this entire thing was a joke. No, this laugh bubbled up as a quick, breathless sound without the slightest bit of genuine humor, almost cruel in how lacking in warmth it felt. “Driving me crazy,” Sylvain repeated in a lower tone, as if talking to himself. “I’ve used that line dozens of times. Girls really love the idea of a guy going mad for them.” Bitterness lent a rigidity to that sentiment. “I can’t believe I’d ever mean it seriously.” Sylvain’s introspection trailed off.

Silence threatened to creep in with your apprehension, but was cut off crudely by a reminder of winter’s last clinging touch as it slammed a gust of wind against the dark windows. The force rattled the glass in their metal frames, which had become far less secure in the time spent unattended. It was a sound that made you jump, suddenly aware that, creeping in from the other side of the glass, the night’s cold threatened the heat radiating from the crackling hearth fire. Paired with the hollow crackle of logs being eaten away by the ever ravenous flames, the fretful wind made the room feel oddly isolated. Sylvain and you were probably the only two left in this wing of the second floor.

“Sylvain…” You said his name slowly. Tasting the syllables in order to buy time while you sorted out what to say next, how to interpret this odd conversation on the tail of such a bizarre argument and weeks of silence.

The two of you had played at flirting a lot, back before he’d begun to ignore you, but each interaction was far more flowery than this, rife with poetry and florid language that suited the poetry and lyric that you both enjoyed. It had been friendly and playful, considering your heart was five years past his cruel rejection during the academy days. And you _were_ past him, but that didn’t stop your heart from skipping with something like hope, or perhaps anxiety, when he spoke of wanting you. Even having outgrown your awkward crush, but how could you deny the effect of someone saying such things? Even Sylvain.

Especially Sylvain.

“I’m touched,” you said, attempting to speak with a lighter lilt to combat the uncomfortable tension in the room. You couldn’t take him seriously, you couldn’t allow yourself to. This had to be some sort of cruel joke or game, or maybe he was lonely and bored. You didn’t dare tell him that it wasn’t funny, not wanting to look like a fool for taking him seriously. You didn’t say that you weren’t falling for it, either, because some stupid part of you, the one who had wept over his rejection all that time ago, was absolutely buying into this stilted articulation of feelings.

But that was the thing, wasn’t it? Sylvain wouldn’t be so skilled in getting girls to fall head over heels for him if he weren’t good at convincing them of his honesty. He wanted some kind of reaction, something specific out of you. You wouldn’t give it to him. So you followed along just as you had in the past, playing into the flirtations as if you were completely comfortable and not at all intimidated by him, as if the break of silence hadn’t occurred and this didn’t feel like a particularly cruel slap in the face after what you had admitted to him.

Breathe.

Tip your head towards him with a cheeky smile in place.

Speak.

“But I have to tell you that I’m not one of those girls who wants a guy all lovestruck for me,” you said, mostly able to achieve a playful tone. “I definitely prefer my suitors to be sane.”

He didn’t smile.

If anything, Sylvain’s frown only deepened. That had been the wrong response, or at least not the one he wanted. The shift of tension wasn’t dramatic, but you felt in in the change of Sylvain’s gaze. Brown eyes that had been guarded as ever only moments ago found intensity and focus when they locked on yours, lasting a scant few seconds before you broke the contact, embarrassed nerves forcing you to glance away towards the once-rich pile of a rug years and years past its prime.

“You don’t believe me, do you?” Sylvain asked. His voice wasn’t harsh, but there was a quality about it that built upon your unease. “I guess I should have expected that, considering how I’ve been. I’ve… I’ve really messed things up, huh?” He sounded hurt by the idea, inviting doubt to creep into your heart.

“It’s not that-” you began before reason could catch up to your instincts, reason that was quick to cut off the rest of your words with a snap. For a moment, you had been about to attempt to soothe away his concerns. Which, if past experiences with Sylvain were anything to go by, was what he wanted. He was doing this all on purpose. To make you forget? To get you to forgive him? For fun?

“I get it.” He sighed in frustration, running a hand through his hair in a movement that read as decidedly anxious, pushing a section of fiery red locks into disarray. That sad look hadn’t left his face. It didn’t suit him, not at all. But-

_No._

“Okay, you can stop now,” you said with a forced roll of your eyes, trying to keep your pain and annoyance under wraps. You didn’t want to argue again any more than you wanted these pretty lies, and you certainly didn’t want him to go back to ignoring you. “I said I was sorry for upsetting you earlier, I think we’re even.”

“You still think that’s why I’m upset?” Sylvain asked incredulously.

“I- Maybe not,” you allowed with a shrug, your conviction in giving him a firm ‘yes’ worn down by his expression. “Either way, you don’t have to play around like this to talk to me, you can just _tell _me what you want, you know.”

“Want?” Sylvain’s tone sharpened into surprise as he looked at you, eyes hard and defensive. “This isn’t like that. I don’t _want _anything.”

Was that the truth? Or did he just not like that you weren’t so easily played? Either way, his continued farce was unappreciated. You had allowed yourself to believe him once, and that had hurt you deeply. You were over it, but how could anyone forget their first rejection? Words arranged themselves in your head, the cruel ones that would make him drop the act no matter how dedicated to it he seemed, ones pulled right up from the acidic pain of the way he’d been acting towards you.

“I quit. You’re too good at this,” you told Sylvain, forcing yourself to play it casual and ease your hurt awkwardness. “You actually almost had me. I bet girls fall all over themselves when you put on a performance like this. I mean, really-” A burst of nervously ill-timed giggles broke off your words, but they, like his, were without humor. “Really, you’ve said it yourself. Girls do seem to love a brooding noble. Maybe ease up with the intensity, though. I mean, you don’t need anything other than your dashing looks and title, right? Not to mention your crest and-”

Sylvain’s expression darkened, ending your rambling with the only effect you could have expected. Whatever facade he wore over the top of his true feelings momentarily melted away, revealing something that was always there, simmering beneath the surface. You had touched a nerve and, honestly, you felt bad as soon as you stopped speaking. But it was too late.

Some men wore their anger without restraint in the fashion of spitting flames and the tumultuous clamor of a world rending disaster. Other men kept it under control, letting it ooze through in vicious clumps of fury. Sylvain was neither of those, falling into a third category.

Cold.

His eyebrows had drawn inwards, eyes gone hard. Sylvain’s expression lacked the heat of a gaudy rage or the bitter tang of acid. Right then, you saw the frigid callousness of winter’s relentless storm clouds as they congested above a tempestuous sea. Lacking the exploitable recklessness of the first and the venomous restraint of the second, it was the type that took a lifetime of injustice to brew. You had seen hints of it in him before, when he spoke of crests or Miklan or occasionally even girls; you had seen a bit of it earlier, too; but for a small stretch, you saw it exposed in full.

“So that’s it, huh?” Sylvain asked, his tone calculatedly casual. It sent a shiver down your spine.

“No,” you objected quietly, managing to muster up shame for speaking in such a way.

“You can be honest if that’s all you think of me. I probably deserve that, too.” Pain was seeping into his voice again, the anger becoming hidden from his eyes like curtains wrenched closed in front of a stage.

“It’s not,” you told him with more conviction, speaking in a tone on just the wrong side of defensively whiny. Then your shoulders wilted, your body tucking more firmly into the corner of the chair. “You know that’s not what I think.”

Sylvain held your eyes a moment longer, then looked away, dragging a hand across his face. The sigh that left his mouth was half growl. “I thought if I stayed away, I could do this right.” He let the hand drop, his eyes opening to meet yours, wide in an attempt to convey honesty. “I swear, I wanted to do this right. But when you mentioned your father’s letter…”

“What?” you cut in. What did he know about that, you hadn’t told anyone that your father had written you. Sylvain didn’t seem to hear you.

“Do you know how many times I’ve complained about girls being jealous? It would make me so frustrated how petty and clingy they could be, ruining all our casual fun. I didn’t understand what it felt like knowing the person you want more than anything in the world doesn’t want you back. I didn’t know how much it could _hurt_.”

You said nothing. What could you say? What were you supposed to respond to that with? Echoing your sentiments, the fire spit and sputtered. The wind rustled. The windows rattled. None offered any answers, only making you feel more and more wound up with tense anxiety.

“I’m making you uncomfortable, aren’t I?” Sylvain asked wryly, cracking the silence.

“Yes,” you said, unsure of anything to give him but the truth.

“Heh, always so honest,” he said with a little laugh, that empty laugh. “Maybe that’s why I’ve been such a coward. Now it’s too late, isn’t it?”

Too late?

“I don’t know,” you said quietly, honestly. You felt like you didn’t know much of anything. “I should… I should get to bed,” you finally said. You stood from your chair and picked up your book, trying to decide what to say as a conclusive ending to this bizarre conversation. You could barely meet his gaze. “Um… Well, goodnight Sylvain.” 

To get to the door, you had to pass his chair. You tried to do so gracefully, without letting your feelings show in your gait by keeping it smooth until you made it to the door, at least. Sylvain didn’t let you get that far. By the time the squeak of surprised fear left your mouth, he was already standing, gripping your wrist to keep you in place.

“Earlier, you said that I don’t need anything other than my title and my crest,” Sylvain said as you turned sharply to face him, his eyes intense and height forcing you to crane your neck to look at him properly. He was close enough for you to smell, the cloves and spice of his cologne and the musky scent of his skin, all mixed in with the warm smoke of the fire and the musty stone of the monastery.

“I didn’t mean-”

“Maybe you’re right,” Sylvain interrupted you. “If I sent your father a proposal of marriage to you, he’d have no choice other than to accept it. Because of my crest and title.”

“That’s horrible,” you said, flinching away and eyebrows converging. He still hadn’t released your wrist.

“If I could spend every day telling you how I feel, eventually you’d believe me, wouldn’t you? Eventually you’d love me like you did, right?” Sylvain asked, pleading now. It occurred to you for the first time that he was being serious. That this wasn’t an act, or a game.

“I- I don’t know. Let me go, please,” you begged, tugging at your arm. You were afraid you’d start crying if he didn’t let you go, your pounding heart pushed the hot rush of tears against your eyes with each thrumming pulse. This was too much. If he wasn’t playing with you, then that meant-

Well, you had no idea what that meant. 

“Sorry,” Sylvain said, as if only now becoming aware of how hard he was gripping your wrist. Those fingers relaxed, and you nearly fell over from the shift of balance. As soon as you had your arm back, you crossed it over your chest, hugging your book with both arms as if it was some kind of lifeline.

He no longer had that look of focus or wild eyes. 

“Goodnight Sylvain,” you said with much more force than you intended, trying to stave off any other reaction.

“Yeah… Goodnight,” he said after a slight pause in which you fully expected him to make some untoward offer or inappropriate offer. Sylvain seemed a bit surprised himself, that look the last one you saw before leaving into the cold, dark hall. 

You didn’t sleep much that night.


	11. Yandere Felix "Just tell me their name and I'll make this all better."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm on a yandere kick over on my blog don't @ me

Usually, your words flowed without filter when you returned home. Living with Felix was to take on the responsibility of filling a decent amount of dead air, and you hardly ever lacked material to regale him with over dinner. Not to mention your carefully cultivated talent of drawing him into a conversation, something you prided yourself on. 

But tonight, there were too many things that needed to be said for you to speak. You knew that your silence was damning. You knew that it said more than you ever could, given a harsh voice by the uncomfortable contrast. You knew these things and loathed and loved it in equal measure because, while it was too much to hope that Felix would never find out, you desperately wanted a few more of these awkward, blessedly silent minutes before he did.

But he wasn’t nearly that stupid and you were a terrible liar.

“What’s the matter with you tonight?” Felix asked, his voice holding an edge of impatient exasperation, as if he’d been waiting a while to speak up. There was a sweet kind of concern, too, even if he did well to hide it. “Usually I can’t get you to _stop_ talking. Not that I mind that. It’s better than sitting here watching you frown at your food.”

“Nothing’s the matter,” you said, taking another stab at your dinner without much enthusiasm. “I guess I’m just… Worn out.”

“Really,” Felix said, deadpan with his displeasure. It made you wince, peeking up at his expression from beneath your lashes. As you’d expect, his mouth was drawn in a frown, one eyebrow arched to compliment the implied question. You couldn’t help but feel that there was something else in that expression. One of the reasons for your anxiety, for your dread of him asking such a simple question. What had happened earlier that day weighed heavily on your mind. Not because of what had been said or how you felt about it, but because of the result you anticipated. 

It wasn’t like you were _afraid_ of Felix, but the feeling was close enough to make your stomach twist in unhappiness, like it was a betrayal to him. You wanted so badly to write it off. Felix was just overprotective. That was understandable, after all he’d been through. 

But sometimes it was frightening. He was frightening. It was as if your pain had an odd effect on the world, an unspoken law of retribution.

Sometimes your skin bristled with goosebumps as you averted your eyes to avoid meeting Felix’s directly because the intensity of his gaze was enough to flay skin from bone, to make your limbs feel cold.

Sometimes he held you just a little too tightly, hiding in the dark to tell you things just a touch off beat, stumbling around the subject of love that still occasionally gave him pause with words establishing his unquestionable claim on you anew.

You weren’t _afraid_ of Felix, but there was something dark simmering below the surface of the man you loved. An open wound that had never seen treatment. That was why, even though you knew he’d learn about it regardless, you shook your head. “It’s silly. I’m fine, really.”

“Oh, clearly,” Felix quipped. He sighed a moment later, shaking his head. “Tell me or don’t but I’d rather you didn’t lie about it.”

You felt your shoulders wilt a bit. There was no malice in his voice. Even if you worried about what laid beneath, Felix was just being kind. You knew full well that he worried. It made you feel guilty. 

“You know how it is. How nobles are, I mean,” you said, thinking of a way to phrase it all in a way that would make it seem petty. Insignificant. “They can be pretty awful sometimes. But it’s fine, I can handle it. I don’t even know why I’m so upset, I already knew how they felt.”

“Did someone say something to you?” Felix asked. His tone had shifted, going from frustrated to sharp. You met his eyes. They were intense, now, lurching that worried pit of anxiety upwards with a deeply unsettling tug. 

“Yes, but it’s not a huge deal,” you said, once again averting your eyes, trying to downplay it.

“Obviously it is,” Felix responded sharply. Then, as if in apology for his harsh reaction, he added, “I won’t be able to help you unless you tell me.”

Help. That was one way to put it. As the head of House Fraldarius, Felix had a great deal of sway. But it wasn’t just that. People forget who Felix was. The war was over, Felix wasn’t the harsh blade of the kingdom who took out enemies as a demon on the field. On the days where he let you hold his calloused hand as you walked the streets of the newly flourishing Fhirdiad and when he sat through endless tedious councils with the newly forged government, he was the kindest version of himself. So people forgot. 

Fools. 

The man who had approached you was from Alliance territory and had a greasy smile and hot breath. He laughed at your disgusted reaction to his proposition, even laughing when you twisted his arm for trying to touch you. A scrappy, irreverent sort of man. The worst that the nobility had to offer. And right then, you had felt _sorry_ for him. 

“Since we married, I, of course, am a lot higher rank than before,” you began to explain, knowing it was a losing battle to keep silent. Felix would find out anyway, he always did. “So the nobles defer to me, but they all know I was born a commoner. Some of them don’t like that, I guess. They see me as a social climber, that I married you for the title. So some of them think I would do _anything_ to get ahead. So they… Make _offers_, I guess. Thinking that I’ll… You know…” You shrugged, trying to skirt around the words themselves to make it sound less threatening. When you looked up, whatever attempt you’d been about to make to further downplay the interaction caught in your throat.

Once, you had fallen into the river at the precipice of spring, when the beds were filled to the brim and the water gushed fast with melting mountain snow. You were lucky to get out, as rivers like were more like than not to freeze your body blue as they dragged you into the dark. As it was, you’d come away shaken to your core and shivering for days, panicked whenever you remembered the water in your lungs or the terror of the fall. Something of that childhood horror was pulled to the surface by the expression Felix wore.

“I see,” he said. “So you were approached with an offer to help you “get ahead” in exchange for a sexual favor. That’s what you were afraid to tell me.” His tone was like tempered steel, the questions made into statements by his even voice. Felix’s eyes weren’t pointedly mad at you, although the irritation was clear. He never leveled the truly frightening emotions at you. 

“I wasn’t afraid,” you said. A lie. You had been afraid. Afraid of this. Your realization, the reason why you had felt sorry for that foolish nobleman, the reason anxiety sunk like an anchor of pure dread into the pit of your stomach. “Felix, like I said, it’s fine. I twisted his arm when he tried to touch me-”

“He tried to touch you?”

“But he didn’t,_” _you quickly amended, your voice very nearly pleading now. “I’m sure he got the message, so it’s fine. Right?”

“Sure,” Felix said, his face a mask of stoicism and voice unyielding. Anger burned in his eyes, a fiery complement to the stony expression he’d adopted. “Just tell me his name and I’ll make this all better.”


	12. Claude Prompt “You’re calling me a monster? Who do you think made me this way?”

“Claude?” you asked, a last-ditch effort to catch his attention. You had hoped he’d notice when you entered the library. Or when you sat in the chair across from him. Or when you cleared your throat. But he hadn’t. He’d been preoccupied as of late, following a cycle you were more than familiar with. Usually, you hated it when he was so distracted, but this time had been different. In a way, you were angry that he’d given you so much time alone. If he hadn’t, perhaps you could still be blissfully unaware. Perhaps you wouldn’t be sitting across from him with rigid posture, your nails were bitten down into nubs and your eyes were burning from a lack of sleep.

Claude looked up to your call, his face still scrunched up in concentration. Recognition hit a second later, a smile growing from the purse of his lips. “Hello to you, too,” he said. Warm, friendly. Your stomach twisted. “Did you need something?” Claude asked. “Or, let me guess, you were lonely.”

You didn’t respond, which he presumptuously took as agreement.

“Maybe it’s time I gave it a break,” Claude said. “After all this boredom, I could use a pick-me-up.” With a dull thud, he closed the book, tossing it aside and only half stifling a huge yawn. Usually, Claude’s playful moods brightened your own, but now you couldn’t help but look for something beneath it. Something Dark. But all you saw was Claude. A bit tired from his endless study but no less warm and inviting than usual. It almost made you stop. You could stop, you didn’t need to do this.

But of course you did. “Actually, I wanted to talk,” you said.

Claude’s smile fell, replaced by an apprehensive expression. “Well that doesn’t bode well,” he said slowly. “Which is fine, of course. Go ahead.”

A breath left your lips, collapsing your chest before you inhaled anew. “Right, so,” you began, trying to think of the best way to phrase what you needed to say. Anxiety nibbled at your insides, although you didn’t like to think of why. Claude looked so _harmless_, lounging in a chair with far too many books than reasonable spread around him. The same Claude you’d always known, loved, and trusted. He wouldn’t hurt you. “What I wanted to ask. Or say, I guess. Is that I, um-”

You stumbled on the words. Claude was giving you his full attention, watching you curiously, cautiously. It made it all the harder. What were you even afraid of? That’d he be upset about your discovery of the dossier he’d compiled on you, information about your comings and goings, private things? You were the one who should have been upset. But the man in front of you with his lovely eyes and puzzled expression couldn’t be that bad. Not possibly. Because if he was, then this had been going on since the beginning of your relationship. Before that, even. 

“It’s something I found,” you finally managed to say. “I wasn’t going through your things to be nosy, I _swear,_ I was just looking for the first few letters we exchanged. But your study is an absolute wreck and you were gone so I was going through the drawers and I-I found something else with my name on it.” You took a deep breath, daring to meet his eyes from under your lashes. “Claude, have you been spying on me?”

There was no grand shift of tension following your question, no dramatics. Instead, Claude donned an expression of comprehension, chin rising in a half-nod. “Ah, I was wondering when you… well, nevermind,” he said, clearing his throat. Rather than finish that thought, he quickly added, “This has really been eating at you, hasn’t it.” Not a question, a mere statement. 

“Of course it has,” you said, frowning at the condescension that he’d state the obvious so patiently and sympathetically. 

“I’m curious about why you didn’t ask me… before now, I mean. You weren’t scared of me, were you?” he asked, a joking tone creeping into his voice. “I would hope you know by now that I’m not some kind of monster who’s gonna fly off the handle or anything. Luckily, I got my mom’s looks, not her temper.”

“I know that,” you said, frustration growing. “That’s not why I didn’t bring it up. All of this… I didn’t _want_ to.”

“I gathered as much,” Claude responded wryly. “Well, I’m happy that you were finally honest. Personally, I can’t stand to let my feelings simmer too long. It’s unhealthy.”

“I know,” you said. A moment later, you shook your head, frowning. Claude looked too innocent for you to tell if he was purposefully misdirecting. Although he looked too innocent for a lot of things. “That’s not the point,” you told him, forcing yourself to sound more authoritative. “Are you actually… Have you been watching me?”

“Sure,” Claude said, admitting to it without any hesitation. Your stomach dropped.

“And everything before? About me, my past. Before we even officially met, you were… Stalking me.”

“Stalking? That’s a bit harsh,” he said, face scrunched up in distaste for the word. “But I guess there was some light… Well, yeah. It was stalking.”

“You’re joking,” you said, almost able to convince that this was all some sort of prank. It was just too unreal, the unthinkable contrasted against the familiar setting of the library, coming from the mouth of someone you thought you knew. “Why?”

“I thought I made it pretty clear that I think you’re interesting,” Claude said, as if that was meant to explain it all away. “Besides, it wouldn’t look very good if you were getting yourself into trouble while I’m busy. _Someone_ has to keep an eye on you.”

“You make it sound like-like I’m a child,” you said, anger swirling in with the discomfort and making your words stutter. “Like I’m in need of constant supervision.”

“If it makes you feel any better,” Claude said, meeting your heightening mood with his own casual tone. “I’ve _never_ seen you as a child.”

Your face darkened, stomach clenching and skin crawling. Anger was hot, but your hands were shaking. When you spoke, you knew it was edging on being a whine, but you couldn’t help it. “Claude, this isn’t funny. I’m being serious.”

“So am I.”

Those words pulled you up completely short. He was being serious. Claude looked unaffected by the situation, by your mood and accusations. It made you dizzy, the feelings too intense to process all at once. Words collected themselves in your head to fight against the spiraling sickness of slipping control, angry words meant to sound sharp. “You said you’re not monster, but that was a lie, wasn’t it? Maybe you’re not the kind with big teeth and claws but-but you make a pretty good boogeyman.”

“You’re calling me a monster?” Claude asked without pause, one of his eyebrows half raised. He sounded so damned _unconcerned_, never taking anything as seriously as he should. Or maybe he was. Maybe that was what you saw gleaming in his eyes, what was so horribly wrong about the situation. Still reeling from your outburst, you said nothing, unsure of what the right answer could possibly be and jaw clenched tightly. Claude shrugged off your silence as easily as he did anything else. “Fair enough. Tell me this, then. Who do you think made me this way?”

And, just like that, he had turned your attempt at control against you. It took a few seconds for your brain to even catch up enough to comprehend what he was implying. Claude was blaming you. Blaming _you_, and all the while wearing looking utterly collected, his eyes dancing in the candlelight. You wanted to answer, you _needed_ to. This was all types of twisted and wrong. A peculiar swirl of rage and terror had struck deep into your heart. But he was wrong. You needed to refute the ridiculous idea that his constricting hold on you was somehow on you, that it was something to be treated so lightly.

But you didn’t. Your mouth opened and shut and your breathing caught and went stale in your lungs.

And that was enough of an answer for Claude. You could see the crystallization of whatever conclusion he’d drawn from your silence by the shift of his smile. Gone was the strangely intimidating edge of before, replaced by a familiar breezy attitude. You wanted to contest this, too, to force him to confront the insanity of what he had just admitted to instead of normalizing it. You needed to push the issue if you had any hope of making it right.

But you didn’t.

“Nah, I’m just kidding,” Claude said, waving his hand as if to dispel the tension like it was nothing more than a bad smell. Then he stretched, yawned again. “Wow, I really am beat. Have you eaten yet? I wonder what the cooks are up to…”

“No, I haven’t,” you said belatedly, hollow words. Claude smiled and stood, holding a hand to you.

“Shall we?”


	13. Hubert Prompt “I’d never hurt you. Not unless you forced me to.”

The dark parted, pain slipping through in an agonizing stream. Thunderous hooves pounding against the ground, inside your head. Skin sliced apart, all of the insides slopping out onto the outsides. But then the rain engulfed you, ice freezing so cold it burned. You wanted to scream, but when you opened your mouth, water filled your lungs. And it was too much. You drowned.

Life had taught you to be mischievous and curious, to smile through the gloom if only to prove you could. You were the weird one, the strange one. Even at the academy, you never truly became a fighter. It simply wasn’t your nature. But that didn’t matter in the end. Survival became more important than living the day the Empire declared a terrible and bloody war against the Church of Seiros. And so you became something else, someone else. And now that person was broken, shattered into tiny shards of porcelain and scattered far and wide across the Tailtean Plains.

Goddess save you, it hurt. Everything, everywhere it hurt. Punishment, surely, because living through calamity was grotesque, unnatural. You should have died, but you had not. Consciousness wavered in and out. At some point, you opened your eyes to the smeary world around you. Faces flashed across your vision, voices echoed and rang in your ears. You tried to speak, but your tongue was swollen and numb and there was no air. Each labored breath was a stab of pain. There was movement beneath you, around you. Jolting, jostling. Onward, forward. The nauseating scent of the battlefield stuck in your nose, the movement of your world twisting your insides. Vomit choked you. The rain washed over you anew.

Clouds broke to give a reprieve from the oppressive rain, but there was no clarity. You couldn’t understand. The pain was less intense now, but you couldn’t help but whimper, uncomfortable to the very marrow of your bones. A new face appeared. An awful, bitter liquid filled your mouth, giving you no choice but to swallow. In turn, you were swallowed by the sharp maw of darkness.

The world had stopped moving. Your surroundings had changed. The world had finally settled. And through the daze of the drugs they forced you to swallow, you remembered. Your friends were dead. Lost to you. The strength and bravery you had so desperately clung to were lost. In a ragged and hoarse voice, you begged for death. It filled the small, stone cell. You thrashed about so violently that you had to be tied down to the bed lest you injure yourself further. And still, they forced medicine, food, water, and treatment upon you.

Swimming in the daze of herbs administered for pain management and to keep you docile, you wept. Drowning in your tears, hours and hours spent mourning for the country you’d lost and the friends who died while you inexplicably were kept alive.

You couldn’t understand.

But, eventually, when you could cry no more, you realized that you had to try.

So you fought the dark and the monsters that lived there, refusing to give in to the sleep you knew would bring nightmares. The tears had gone, your hitching sobs faded into painful hiccups. The pain was the ache of healing ribs, as it turned out. The crying and thrashing had done little to help.

There, in the dark, you focused. Glazed eyes fixed upon the stone ceiling, sluggish mind moving through memories and thoughts, testing each one to check for value. The sandstone above you was marked with a map of cracks. Your lips moved with whispered words as you attempted to compile some understanding of all that had happened. The whole room was cold stone, indifferent to your pain. Your head ached, but you forced yourself to think.

“I heard them say it,” you muttered, your voice quiet to avoid putting too much pressure on your ribs. “The battle at the Tailtean Plains was a complete loss for the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus. For us. King Dimitri is… He’s dead. They’re all dead.” The lack of passion in your voice scared you, but it wasn’t unearned. You had tried to verbalize the reality of everyone’s death a dozen or so times now, each attempt ending in tears.

“But I’m not dead.” Not for a lack of trying, though. Towards the very end, a sword had slashed a gaping wound into your side. You could recall fragments of that moment. Shock, terror. The fall was missing from your memory, but you remembered the agony of hitting the ground. As the dark invited you, the rain cutting beneath your skin and running your blood pink, there was a voice, a set of hands. Someone you clung onto in those final moments. And the call of the abyss.

“The Imperial army spared me,” you said. “I… Don’t know why. The cut was fixed, but there were too many other wounded soldiers to heal me completely.” It wasn’t worth mentioning that your captors probably didn’t want you to be healed, either. An injured, drugged prisoner was a bit more convenient. “Now we’re in Enbarr,” you continued. “I’ve never been to Enbarr. I always hoped I’d get to come and see the opera, Professor Manuela made it sound so…” Your whispers died off with that thought, chapped lips relaxing into a part to make way for your wheezing breaths. It was too much to think of things like that, lost memories from when your life was normal and made sense.

You didn’t want to sleep, but the sudden exhaustion was too much to bear and the sound of rain was pulsing, pounding, undeniable, inescapable.

It was light again, the sun shining outside the tiny slit window of your cell. The priest who visited you on what you assumed to be a daily basis was a stern man with exhausted eyes. He gave you no name and did not as for yours, all the while stoically ignoring all of your questions. Each day he checked on you, he reapplied the Silence that kept your only weapon unusable. There was a servant who managed the lamps, gave you food, and switched out the chamberpot, but she did so without so much as a single word to you. She had never so much as given you a glance. With such intense isolation, it was no wonder you’d begun speaking to yourself so frequently. You worried that if you didn’t, you’d forget how to.

Light, then dark. Another visit from the taciturn Priest. With treatment, your wounds were healing nicely. They no longer plied you with sleeping powders or potions. As badly as you had wished for it before, recovery and control over your own mind was a double edge sword. On the one hand, you were glad. On the other, you feared what would happen now that you were more or less whole. Any day now, your captives would make their intentions for your rescue clear and you didn’t hold out much hope that it was altruistic in nature. They’d question you, maybe. Possibly torture you. You knew many things you shouldn’t, after all. If you were being completely honest, you knew that you would break quite easily under the threat of pain. Your life had never taught you to be strong, and even small pains made your eyes well up with tears. After the questioning, they would kill you. That was the only logical conclusion. There was nothing they could ever do to make you accept Edelgard as your ruler. You could never, ever forgive any of them for what they had done. You’d be a loose end.

Cowardice struck deep and icy into your spine whenever your thoughts began to spiral in that direction. Not tears of mourning, but of self-pity. Pathetically, all you could linger on was that you didn’t want this to happen, any of it. All you had ever wanted was to be with your friends. See the opera in Enbarr, visit the Alliance’s famed capital, and help King Dimitri rebuild Faerghus with all your friends. It wasn’t fair. Why weren’t you dead? Why you and not them? Why did Emperor Edelgard declare war? You knew so many things but understood so little.

But the world didn’t stop for your ignorance.

Minutes. Hours. Days. You had no idea how much time passed between the Priest’s visits. The sound of the door to your cell being unlocked yanked you from a hazy half-sleep. It was expected, and you weren’t entirely awake as you turned on your thin bed to sit up –a motion that still brought alarming amounts of pain to your damaged midsection– and smoothed your hair as a nod to manners you to whom you owed no tribute. You considered what you might say to the Priest, if you would try jokes or threats or anything to distract you from reality and make you feel more human. He had never responded, but you tried anyway. To remind yourself, maybe, of what you were. Or for some easy entertainment. Today you’d go with a joke, you could think of a really good joke, surely-

Those thoughts dissipated like mist burned away by the sun when you recognized the man who entered your cell. Hubert had changed, but not so much that you could be confused as to his identity. The shock of change was the first thing you noticed once the jarring jolt of seeing him enter your cell abated somewhat, the thing your mind grasped onto dearly to keep from panicking. Hubert von Vestra, Emperor Edelgard’s intimidating shadow. Not much of a shadow now, towering over your sitting form with an unreadable look of consideration on his face.

Fear and anxiety threatened to overtake you when you met his stare, but you combatted it with sheer disbelief. You knew quite a bit about Hubert. As far as particular points of intrigue, he was practically a gold mine of secrets and mystery. If that weren’t enough, Hubert was also tied to many of the most fascinating secrets you’d uncovered. You made it a point to keep up with spies and informants that dealt in information about the man in specific. A hobby of yours.

Unfortunately, you knew very little about who had become as a person. None of the reports spoke of the things you couldn’t help but notice now. Hubert retained that aura of malice you remembered, but his manner of presentation had changed dramatically. Not merely the hair and the clothes, or the whetstone of time that sharpened his cutting bone structure into something lethal, but some fundamental piece of his identity. Gone was the borderline awkward line of his stiff shoulders and self-important smirk, replaced by something more natural. Hubert’s posture and expression now belonged to him entirely, worn with all the comfort of a favored coat. Although he had been technically an adult even during the academy days, the person you saw now was a man. Odd how that distinction mattered. Odd how it made your skin crawl, want to scramble off the bed to ease the height disparity and attempt to gain some sort of upper hand.

Five years ago you hadn’t felt afraid of Hubert in the least. But, five years ago you hadn’t been a prisoner of war facing the victor from a position of battered powerlessness. Five years ago you had been an awkward teenage girl who chased secrets without knowing the inherent danger of finding things people would prefer to keep hidden. Five years ago you hadn’t been overpoweringly aware that you were helpless beneath his imposing, masculine presence. Now you understood, and so it was only rational for you to feel afraid.

“I’m glad to see you looking so well, I feared you wouldn’t make it the last time we parted,” Hubert said with a poisonous warmth, sitting on the only other piece of furniture in the cell beside the bed –a chair that the surgeon usually occupied. Like the bed, it was bolted to the floor. As if you were any great combatant. Even if you weren’t injured, the permanent state of Silence imposed on you would have rendered any and all of your combat strength null.

Words jumped to your tongue, but you tempered them. This interaction was not to be taken lightly. So you measured Hubert. The immediate response was to ask him if he was the one to save you, given that the last time you remembered meeting him was five years ago. You couldn’t remember anything following the battle on the plains, especially not him, but after a second you decided that was redundant as the affirmative was the only logical conclusion. Then you considered demanding to know why he had saved you and why you were here, but feared that your fear and weakness would leak through those words.

In your most intimate mind, past the uneasy calm you clung to, you longed to express fire hot rage and claw his eyes out, to damn the consequences and attack him with all your meager strength for what he had done. It wasn’t like you to do that, but maybe just this once you could be that person. It was what he deserved, what your friends deserved.

But you didn’t. Worse, you feared you couldn’t, that your strength would fail you and you’d only be reminded once more of the weakness you had never been able to kick. Instead, you found yourself without a single word to greet a man you hadn’t seen in over five years, your eyes glassy as wrath turned to despairing slush in your veins. Seeing him reminded you of all you had lost. Reminded you of the last time you had seen him, standing against his Imperial troops in defending the monastery. That battle had been the last with all of your friends. They were all dead or traitors now. Thinking of it was like tugging open the ragged skin of an open wound, making you physically recoil away. Weakness, too weak. You did your best to shove those thoughts from your mind, to steady your breathing.

Hubert studied you a moment longer, continuing to wait for you to respond. Finally, he scoffed, a sound at odds with the slight smirk on his face. “Not even a thanks?” he asked. “Well, you always were unforgivably rude. Constantly watching Lady Edelgard and asking questions about things you had no business knowing. I considered killing you a dozen times, you know.”

“How flattering,” you responded, or tried to. The words were meant to be cheeky, to show you weren’t afraid, but your voice was shaking and hoarse from disuse and got garbled up before they even left your mouth. Instead, they set you coughing, a reaction that struck your bandaged ribs and stomach with about as much tenderness as a hammer and stole away any of the power you’d tried to claim. Either the pain or the coughing set your eyes to watering and face flushing red hot, head and chest aching fiercely when you pulled in a final wheezing gasp. The cup of water on the floor at the side of your bed was stale, but welcome in the way it soothed your ragged throat. “How flattering,” you tried again when you had a grip on yourself, grinding the words out to keep them steady.

“Flattering? Hardly. You were an annoyance, nothing more than a pest I considered for extermination,” Hubert said, doing one of the last things you’d expect and passing you a plain white handkerchief with a look of half-concealed disdain. You accepted after only a second of considering your options and, deciding that it was more embarrassing to look a mess than to take his charity, used it to mop up your face. Whatever the small act of kindness meant, you were in no position to turn it down.

That justification didn’t ease the discomfort of the way he smirked at your easy acceptance, watching you in a way you found nearly unbearable. Hubert was smart, smarter than you, maybe. Where you were a hobbyist, he was a professional. Not with people, but with the deconstruction of them. 

“Unfortunately, it seems that inviting the ire of those more powerful than yourself wasn’t a habit you managed to rid yourself of,” Hubert continued. He spoke in a tantalizing way, inviting you to ask questions, to give into the blunt shock factor he was trying to encourage. Part of you wanted to give in –those words really did pique your curiosity. You had always been interested in knowing the things you shouldn’t. It was probably the most valuable attribute you’d brought to the war. But you weren’t quite so reckless as you had once been and the other part of your mind just wanted to ask him to say what he wanted outright, annoyed with the pointless posturing.

Unfortunately, you were too afraid of your voice cracking to do either. Hubert waited for you, but it was a fruitless pause, each ticking second wearing away at your raw nerves. He sighed in annoyance when you didn’t rise to the bait which was, in its own way, a bit of a victory.

“You see, before the battle, I was asked to ensure your death. A request on behalf of someone quite important,” Hubert began to explain. “Doesn’t that strike you as odd? You’re laughably unimportant, even among those defending the Church. I understand it as necessary to see to the death of all the kingdom patriots, but why name you in particular?” Hubert waited again as if for an answer, but the gleam in his eyes indicated that it was merely a pause to watch your reaction. His smile was sharp, eyes flashing. “So I began looking into you, wondering if you were the same annoyingly meddlesome girl I remembered from the academy who stuck her nose into things she really ought to have left alone. You’re smarter than you were, but I managed to find evidence of your nosing in the most… Unwanted of places.”

Your heart sank, stomach twisting and sloshing with the water you’d just downed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” you said flatly, despondently.

“You can’t lie to me. I’ve been keeping an eye on you for a while. Once we reclaimed the Kingdom capital, it wasn’t difficult to find your notes.” You tensed up, thinking of all the information you’d compiled. So caught up your own tragedy, you’d nearly forgotten. “You needn’t worry, I managed to keep them away from any prying eyes. Although, after studying them for a bit, I think I can understand why they would want you dead. The shadowy cabal you write about, that you’ve taken so much effort to document and study. Those Who Slither in the Dark.”

Your breath caught. The name made you flinch away, such a stupid reaction. Words couldn’t hurt you and yet these ones… They laid heavy in their air. Those Who Slither in the Dark. You had known they were working with the Empire, but hadn’t believed they’d be entrenched in the very heart of the Imperial crown. It made sense, in a way. A sickly, horrifying sort of sense. Hubert was working through them, for them, and they wouldn’t spare you. That was all you could think. Compared to their other crimes, the torture of a single individual wasn’t even that bad. All things being equal, it was practically a mercy. Hubert’s eyes didn’t stop gleaming, flashing, devouring your expressions as they flittered across your face.

“Your friends didn’t believe you about them. Nobody did. They never so much as attempted to understand you, let alone believe what you were saying,” Hubert sounded gleeful in reminding you of that fact. You had no idea how he could have possibly known that, but it hurt too badly to ask. Of course your friends hadn’t believed you, there were far more pressing issues to be dealt with. Only Rhea had given any indication that she knew of who you spoke. But her warpath was waging in one direction, and she didn’t care to consider your conspiracy. Of course, of course-

“They didn’t know,” you said, hating the weak tremor of your voice. You had to be stronger, to redirect the conversation. “But you… Your emperor… You’re are working with them.” Emotion bled into your tone, and you didn’t bother trying to hide it. It was a stronger feeling, anger. His emperor was the one who had lead the deadly assault on your country and kinsmen. Your king, your friends, dead at her orders. Commands supported by those shadowy fiends and their horrifying tactics. Your friends had no reason to believe you about Those Who Slither in the Dark, but there was no way Hubert didn’t know fully what they were and what they had done.

“Using them,” Hubert clarified lightly, clearly unphased by your accusation.

“You used them to destroy Arianrhod?” you asked Hubert. “No survivors. Civilians, soldiers, women, and children all taken out in fell swoop… Emperor Edelgard can only rule when the land has been scorched into submission, is that it?”

A controlled flash of dangerous anger, purified violent intent, crossed his face. “You forget your place,” Hubert said, his voice curling with deadly promise. “Speak of Her Majesty in such a disrespectful manner again and I’ll have your tongue.”

You shied away from him on instinct, flushing with fear. You really had forgotten your place, your circumstances. There was nothing in Hubert’s expression or voice to indicate that he wasn’t willing to follow through with that threat, and you could do nothing to stop him. Defiance was so easy until you remembered the consequences.

“I’m sorry,” you said, speaking without even thinking about it, anything to spare yourself, to soothe the familiar flare of hot tempers.

Hubert looked somewhat surprised by the apology, but that quickly became a smile. “It’s difficult to believe you are the woman he was worried about, so easily giving in to such an inconsequential threat. Truthfully, I expected a bit more fight,” he said. Your shoulders curled inwards as you avoided Hubert’s eyes out of embarrassment, scorning yourself a hundred times over and hoping you never found out what he would consider a consequential threat. Seemingly bored of your silence, he moved on with a more business-like tone, “To answer your question, allow me to ask you this. Did you approve of everything the church did? Or did you see their help merely as a means to an end, a way to defeat the Empire and potentially use in rebuilding Faerghus.”

The question threw you off once more, making you frown. Hubert would understand that type of thinking, you’d seen him employ it a dozen times over with the dubious types he would hire to enact some of his missions. It was practical. Then you thought of Lady Rhea, her rage. Her terrifying, unholy rage. You couldn’t help but shiver. And then there was the matter of their sin, a well-documented lie they hid from the world, banning innovation and information. The Church was corrupt in a deep-seated way, rotten down to its roots. You could understand the argument Hubert was making, it was only logical.

You should your head in denial of that understanding. “That’s a false equivalence,” you protested. “The Church might have been bad, but the people you’re working with are… Malice incarnate. How could you even think to use them? The pain they caused, the unspeakable things they’ve done.” You let out a breath, focusing on the pain of your ribs to try and avoid getting emotional again. “I just don’t understand.”

“Fortunately, I don’t require your comprehension of such decisions,” Hubert said dismissively, doing nothing to hide his patronizing tone. “Now that the Empire has taken out the corrupt Church of Seiros, it is my duty to wage the shadowy war on Those Who Slither in the Dark. Due to their extreme reach and power, I cannot trust many to join me in this cause. Consider this a professional venture. Help me destroy Those Who Slither in the Dark. In return, I’ll allow you to live.”

“If I don’t?” you asked, an instinctual question. You knew the answer, of course you did.

“I’ll kill you,” Hubert said without pause. His posture was relaxed into the chair, his arms folded and head tilted slightly with a small twist of a smile on his face. Confidence radiated from the man. Curiosity, maybe, to see which path you would take.

You stared at him with parted lips and wide eyes, realizing once again that you were a coward. After waking up, bound and undergoing treatment sustained from trying to take on the Imperial Army, knowing you had lost the battle and everything you held dear, you had begged to be killed. That was the only honorable way of it, to die with your king and country. It’s what Hubert would do, what any of your friends would do.

And yet now that he offered it, death did not sound so appetizing after all.

“Does allowing me to live mean I’ll be free?” you asked, a hedging point for negotiation. You had no leg to stand on in the matter, but you felt as if you had to at least try.

“It means I won’t kill you,” Hubert reiterated bluntly. Meeting his eyes, shadowed by the poor lighting of the room yet soaking up every drop of the yellow spectrum light, you realized once more that you had no power here. He was asking for your aid, but you were not necessary. Convenient, if anything.

And you were a coward. An awful, terrible coward.

“Fine,” you said. For the greater good, you told yourself desperately. For the sake of those who died. For the sake of those who yet lived. To take down the biggest evil, the one King Dimitri was too blind to even consider might exist. Because you could escape, you could liberate Faerghus just as your friends wanted, as Loog did.

Because you didn’t want to die.

Hubert smiled. The smile of the grim reaper himself.

“I suspect you’re ready to be freed of this cage, then? We have an unimaginable amount of work ahead of us. Your wounds seem to be healing nicely.” Without warning, Hubert reached out, taking your chin in hand to tilt your face into the light. It must have been awful, a faded watercolor of bruises, but Hubert looked more intrigued than disgusted. The feeling of his gloved hand on your skin sent a shock through you, your muscles becoming tense and breath catching in fear. He noticed this, too. And it made him smile. “Are you scared of me?” Hubert asked, amused by the idea. “You shouldn’t worry. I’d never hurt you. Not unless you forced me to.”


	14. Yandere Dimitri Prompt “Be good for me this time. I don’t want to see you cry again.”

Dimitri always held you when you cried. The world was so simple within the cage of his familiar arms, the weakest parts of your heart satiated when he cradled you against him. Even if he was the reason for your tears, Dimitri was refuge. Safety. Forever and always. That was the promise that you had made, the vow that bound you together. So you clung to him and allowed yourself to be held, let your tears wet his skin as they fell. His voice was rough and broken, muffled against your hair and vibrating in his chest. “I’m sorry,” he said. Over and over again. “I’m so sorry. I’m sorry, I-”

_“-Love you.”_ That was what Dimitri said when he asked you to marry him, presenting you with a ring and an adorably hopeful gaze. He was nervous and shy and awkward about it all, and everything was perfect. You had said yes without a second thought. You knew of the problems he faced. You knew that he was fractured in ways no magic or love could fix, that his very spirit was lined with the cracks of pressure and pain. You knew that, of course you did. And you loved him.

“I’m sorry,” he said again, his voice hoarse and broken, the bass rumbling against your cheek. You could hear his heart. Beneath layers of skin and bone and tissue, it pounded out the lulling pulse of a drum. “I-”

_“-Love you, too,”_ was your response to the proposal. You had been so happy, even more so than when you won the war, somehow. To love and be loved, to be needed and adored, was all you ever wanted, really. 

Too late you realized that Dimitri’s love was a complicated knot, and that being needed wasn’t always a good thing. It was only after half a calendar’s worth of moons that you realized how the vows you made could so easily become twisted up in bits of depraved adoration and obsession, how strong feelings could fester into a sickness with excessive indulgence. He only let you see bits of it, at first. Little warnings that should have given you pause. Never had you thought that “I love you” could be a weapon, or that affection could be so desperately violent. Never had you thought that being wanted could feel a lot like being targeted, or that love could be a prison. When Dimitri’s mania mixed with his madness and one of the worst episodes of rage he’d had in a while, the ensuing storm wasn’t a surprise as much as it was the culmination of all of the things you’d been so purposefully ignoring.

This time, it had been the jealousy.

“I’m sorry,” Dimitri muttered, raspy and broken, his voice nearly giving out. He didn’t mean to hurt you, and you believed that. He loved you, and you believed that. But his strength was immense and sometimes he simply couldn’t manage his tumultuous shifts in moods and the delusions had never really gone away like they should have and so he needed to feed the frenzy with desire, to destroy any lingering traces of everyone else with his brutal affections. It was just that you were his, you had promised him that, voiced in a vow before the goddess, and sealed the fact in a million different ways since. It was just that he loved you, love you _so much_ that he didn’t know what to do. “I’m s-”

You woke up the next morning with dry, red eyes and a face swollen and splotchy. You were sore and disheveled. At some point in the night, the sheet had become twisted, leaving most of your body bare to the light that slanted in through the window. Bruises had formed stark shapes across your skin, ready for appraisal. Dimitri, soft now, brushed his fingertips over them with a light touch, disgust and horror and pain in his gaze. You didn’t flinch away from his touch, watching the goosebumps rise beneath his fingers with a strange dispassion. Whatever shock or fear you had once had long become dull.

“I am so-” Dimitri began, his expression crumpled with pain and regret.

“I know,” you said, cutting him off before he could say those words again. His eye jumped to your face, eyebrows furrowed deeply. A helpless look. 

“When I saw the way he was smiling at you, _touching_ you so casually, I just...” Dimitri’s voice broke, his pain jagged and sharp. You hurt too, but that was dull and heavy, limp and lifeless beneath everything else you felt. Tears welled in his good eye, holding to his lashline without falling. “But that’s not important. No matter what the reason, I shouldn’t have... I don’t expect you to forgive me, but-”

“I know,” you said again, putting your hand on his cheek to still him. To quell the tempest. Dimitri looked up at your touch. His gaze was searching, piercing, pleading, one eye shining with the blue gray of a gentle sea and the other shot through with milky white blindness, unseeing and scarred. He looked, more than anything else, vulnerable. The tear finally fell, sliding down his cheek and against your hand. He brushed a lock of hair from your face, unbearably gentle. Dimitri loved you. He needed you.

“I love you,” he told you. “More than anything or anyone.”

You spoke without hesitation, “I love you, too.”

“I’ll make this up to you,” he vowed. “I swear it.”

“I know,” you said a third time, the words hollow. They tasted like acceptance, consent. They were, in a way. Dimitri kissed you with gentle lips, his hands holding you without pressure. You could have pulled away, but you didn’t. Instead, your other hand brushed through his hair, your lips parting to his tongue. You were unable to withhold your affection, not from him. Dimitri deepened the kiss, some of his strength breaking through with his need to have you close. It was sweet and adoring and so, so telling. He believed it would be okay. He believed that you were hurt by his violence and mood swings and that this adoring intimacy would fix it. But that wasn’t quite it. It was these kisses that terrified you the most, the ones you accepted without hesitation because of the love they conveyed. These kisses that were as sweet as the first on the day when he had confessed his love with that adorably awkward hope, the kind of kiss that existed only between two people who were truly in love. These kisses were wonderful, the ultimate decay of what you had once believed was love.

Dimitri pulled away before things could escalate, not wanting to push for more from your sore body. He was content with the sweetness of a simple kiss. Why did that ache, a swollen, tight feeling in your chest?

“My heart is yours,” he said, his forehead against yours. “My beloved… It is only yours.”

“And mine, yours,” you said, an echoing affirmation of your love. A shackling prison sentence. Although your eyes were closed, you could feel the way he reacted to the words, the way they lulled him to finally relax. 

“I _will_ make this right,” Dimitri said, pulling away. You met his gaze, no longer finding it to be so desperately needful. It wasn’t sanity you saw in his eyes, it hardly ever was when it came to you, but there was composure. “All I ask is that you’ll be good for me this time.” He reached for your hands to express this plea, his long fingers enveloping them completely. They were always cold, even when his temperature burned to fever. They were familiar. Safe. "I don’t want to see you cry again."


	15. Yandere Caspar Prompt “I’m trying to help! You had a problem, and I fixed it!”

There was no name you could think to call yourself, no direct consciousness to cling to. No person living in the confines of your weightless head. There was nothing but an endlessly rolling sea of fog, your head cresting the waves every so often to grasp at a memory of a life you couldn’t remember.

You were a child, standing on the pier with your father —he was a naval engineer, the best in the Leicester Alliance— as you looked upon his newest warship. She was a beautiful creature, this ship named Claudia, everyone said so. You weren’t so sure. It was her face, you thought, her front —the bow! it was called the bow because ships always had different names for everything— was fixed with a frightening metal face. And she smiled. Not for you or your father or for the dozen others who had come to see this modern marvel. No, Claudia smiled for the enemies, for the Almyrans. Claudia, beautiful Claudia, would approach them with a scary bronze grin, Claudia would smile as she killed them. 

You were a girl, twirling in your new dress made of imported fabrics shipped in from the Empire on the eve of your first ball. You felt beautiful, weightless, ready to leave behind your childish toys and frocks and join the adults in their courtly games. But these games were dangerous, and not all smiles were honest. Makeup tears ran down your face as your mother told you —wiping the blackened tears from your cheeks so as to avoid staining the beautiful fabric of your new dress— to smile even when it hurt.

You were a woman with a face drawn and pale as you followed the evacuation orders of the ruling Duke Claude von Riegan. Imperial Troops were marching to take Derdriu. And they would win, everyone knew they would, even if all the Alliance soldiers armed themselves and formed defensive lines to keep them at bay. All of the fine naval weapons your father had spent his life creating were useless, now. No smiles, bronze or otherwise, would greet the Emperor when she conquered. 

You were a survivor, emerging from the war relatively unscathed and as a newly sworn part of the new Fódlan government under the command of Emperor Edelgard. Maybe that would have scared you, or made you go red with shame, but there was a smile that kept you from falling to those feelings. A true, warm, reckless smile. He had a name, you knew it. He had a name and a voice and warm, warm hands. 

Hands that had caught you when you fell, when you were dizzy and unstable as heavy black inkblots invaded your vision and pulled you under. What happened before the dark? What name had you called, whose hands had caught you?

You knew it! You knew, you knew, you knew-

“Caspar?” you managed to gasp out, trying to claw out of the fog and into the world using the name as an anchor. A warm, warm hand grabbed yours as you flailed, holding you still. Your eyelids fluttered, heavy and unfocused. He was blue. Blue eyes and hair, a color that was all at once soft and electric as it blurred in your vision. You could remember the color, from before the dark, before the falling. Before-

“Hey, relax, you’re okay,” he said comfortingly, his calloused thumb rubbing circles on your hand. You groaned in response, your body heavy and head fuzzy. It was too much for you to support yourself, your limbs wilting back into the seat and corner wedge of the wall. The familiar sway of a horse-drawn coach trundled beneath you. Your body ached in a thousand places from the uncomfortable position. And yet you couldn’t find the energy to move, to consider what was happening. “It’s fine if you keep sleeping, we’re not there yet.”

You groaned again, the words you wanted to say not finding cohesion in your own brain. Sleep sounded nice. Sleep was inevitable. So you let it wash over you, fading out of whatever reality you’d managed to find and into the grasp of memories unearthed by his voice. 

Now there was a new feeling, one that was very distinctly yours. It was sinking, drowning, dark, and cold. It held like chains, trapping you in the dark.

You were newly engaged and laden with the heavy weight of news you so badly didn’t want to voice aloud. Beside you sat the man with the brilliant smile. Caspar von Bergliez, that was his full name but you only ever knew him by the first because he had absolutely no regard for station and you enjoyed the thrill of ignoring propriety. He had his own heavy, horrible news.

“You’re leaving?” you asked to clarify, eyes wide with shock and panic. The salty breeze of the ocean air blew a fresh gust, bringing another wave of the familiar fishy, wooden scents from the docks, but there was no comfort in it.

“Yep, I got orders to leave tomorrow. I guess there’s some sort of dispute in Enbarr I’ve gotta go check out.” Caspar shrugged casually. “I’m not sure what it's about but it seems urgent.”

“Will you be coming back?” you asked, a hint of desperation in your voice. It was strange how quickly the terror had taken hold in your heart, considering that you knew he would have to leave eventually. But leaving now of all times, right when you needed his brilliant smile the most.

“Yeah, I have no idea,” Caspar said. “Thanks to you, I got my work here done in half the time I expected.” He smiled, as if not seeing the tragic irony of your help allowing him to leave sooner. “That’s actually why I wanted to meet with you today, ‘cause you’ve been such a big help.” He paused, uncharacteristically taking the time to consider his next words with a crease between his eyebrows. “I was wondering if maybe you could come with me... If you want to. We make a pretty great team, if I do say so myself, and I’ve been needing someone to keep me organized and stuff.”

You stared at him, jaw loose on the verge of dropping. Caspar wasn’t the type to lie, and you doubted any motive he’d have to make up something like this. Shock faded into something like anger. Not at the short notice of the invitation or the casual way he proposed it, although those were perfectly valid complaints. No, you were angry as you wondered why couldn’t he have asked you _earlier_?

“I can’t,” you said, but the wind caught your soft words and pulled them away. Swallowing hard, you averted your gaze, unable to look at Caspar directly. “I can’t do that. My father has... Arranged for me to be married. That’s what I wanted to tell you today.”

“What?” Caspar asked, his body tensing in a way you could feel through space between you. “You’re gonna say no, right?”

“I can’t,” you repeated. “Lord Pendleton is doing my family an honor by agreeing to the match.” You spoke the words you’d heard a hundred times from your parents with great care, a sick feeling in your stomach. Even saying the name — soon to be your name — was difficult, like a mouthful of medicine you had to force down your throat.

“Him? But you don’t even like that guy!” Caspar said. His voice was raised too loud for comfort in the relative peace of the breezy afternoon, making you flinch. Tears stung at the back of your eyes at this horrible arrangement of events, but you forced them back. Your mother told you to smile, no matter what. The one you mustered was a bitter, fragile thing, full of false humor. 

“That’s not the point of arranged marriages,” you said, forcing an even voice. “And I don’t _dislike_ Lord Pendleton. By all accounts, he’s a fine man. His family has been working with mine for years. And, besides, everything has already been arranged. I can’t just break it off like that.” Not without making an enemy of both his family and your own, at least. Despite that logic, guilt formed a knot in your chest on top of the selfish pain. Denying Caspar when he was looking at you with such earnest eyes was harder than you’d have ever thought, but you raised your gaze to meet them, to plead with him. “You understand, right?”

Caspar frowned, his shoulders slumping a bit as the burst of passion faded. He nodded. “Yeah, yeah, I get it…” He sighed, running a hand over his face, into his hair. It was already tousled by the wind, but now the longer bits stuck up. It was cute in a way you absolutely loathed noticing. “If I had asked you before, would you have said yes?” he asked.

“Yes,” you agreed without hesitation. That made his frown fade a bit, although the thought didn’t bring you much solace. It was little more than an empty prize, a chest of fools gold. 

“Yeah, cause you like me way better, right?”

And again, you answered without thinking. “Of course I do. You’re… You’re a good man,” you told him. “You’re the closest friend I’ve ever had.” You deflated with those words, a hollow feeling in your chest. In contrast, Caspar’s chest only seemed to swell.

“Aw, I like you a lot, too,” he cooed, a strangely unaffected response to such a deeply personal confession. “_A lot_, a lot. And you know what? I have a feeling things are just gonna work out.”

Sending a sideways glance at Caspar, you felt a melancholic burst of affection. Maybe innocent was a strange word to describe a fully grown man, and perhaps an inappropriate one if you were to get right down to it. Condescending, infantilizing, and certainly unbecoming of the Minister of Military Affairs. And yet, it was the only description that came to mind in your hours with Caspar. He wasn’t innocent in the way of white flowers and doe eyes, but in an innate, childish way that gave light to his beaming smile and a captivating animation to his endlessly energetic attitude. And, yes, he was innocent when it came to women. Happily oblivious, or perhaps too distracted by everything else to be preoccupied with such things. Right then, it hurt. If he had offered marriage, perhaps you could have said yes. If he had shown any sign of romantic affection, maybe you could have justified taking his offer.

Heart sunken deep, you looked out to the ocean where clouds were building on the horizon. Not storm clouds, but the thick type that would bring a pointless oceanic gloom with them. You related to them far more than Caspar’s sweet optimism. “I hope so.”

You were a child and your father was carrying you in his arms, cradled to his chest while you pretended to sleep so he wouldn’t put you down. He smelled like the ocean, sawdust, and the achingly familiar scent of the cologne your mother liked so much. But, no. That wasn’t true, you weren’t a child and it wasn’t your father who was carrying you. Your body ached in the way it had only begun aching when you reached adulthood. The smell was wrong, too. Sweat and linen and leather.

Then there was a bed beneath you, a place you could finally lay flat. Still, the discomfort persisted, your brain relentlessly struggling against the dark and muscles falling slack. It was the thirst that finally got your eyes open and stiff body moving. The moments between wakefulness and the press of the cup to your lips was a blur, you couldn’t even remember seeing the water beside your bed. It was _sweet, _soothing your throat with each desperate swallow. Some of it dribbled down your chin, nearly choking you. Still weak, so weak, your fingers let the empty tin cup fell to the floor. Then your eyes closed again, ignoring the dozens of little pains you suffered. 

"Oh, so you are awake!” Your eyes opened to the familiar voice, watching him enter the tent. A tent? “That’s good,” Caspar said. “I was starting to worry you’d never open your eyes.”

“How long was I asleep?” you asked, the words coming without thought as your mind swam, too disoriented to focus on any of your larger concerns. It looked and smelled like the earliest hours of the morning when he had opened the tent, the air thin and bitter with a creeping chill.

“About twenty hours? Give or take some, yesterday was pretty hectic,” Caspar answered, looking up as he thought. Then he smiled, sitting on the edge of your bed and stretching, throwing you a sideways grin. “Did you know that you snore? I didn't know girls did that. It was pretty cute. Reminded me of this cat I used to take care of.” His tilted. “I kinda miss that little guy."

“Twenty hours,” you repeated, knowing the words had far more significance than you could give them. Fog clouded your brain, panic barely finding its way through when everything all felt so unreal, so far away. The water hadn’t done much to ease the sour, sandy flavor weighing down your tongue. Your body sagged, your head aching. Everything was so _uncomfortable_ you could hardly stand it. Fear of the unknown, of the confusion, was beginning to take hold. “Last I remember I was… You were there?” you asked, looking at him helplessly. “What happened? Where are we?”

“Hey, don’t panic, everything’s okay!” Caspar said, looking a little panicked himself. “We’re an hour out from the old Empire border. It’ll be two days more of traveling before we get to Enbarr.” His face scrunched unhappily. “I’ll have to teach you how to ride long distances so we can make better time when we travel from now on. Traveling so slow is the _worst_.”

“We left Derdriu,” you said, cold with horror. Memories were slipping into place, more relevant memories. “I snuck out to see you off and... You poisoned me?”

Caspar frowned. “Believe me, I didn’t want to!” he emphatically told you. “But I was worried you’d make everything all complicated again. I knew you were gonna feel too bad about leaving to come with me without some... Help. Besides, it’s better this way. You’d be completely wasted as Lord Pendleton’s wife. He’s a chump and a coward.”

“So you kidnapped me?” you asked, overwhelmed and nearly breathless on the verge of hyperventilating.

“You said you _wanted_ to come with me,” he said.

“It’s not that simple,” you protested, a hand rising to your head to halfheartedly massage your temples.

“See? You think too much, it makes everything so complicated. Now that you’re already gone, you don’t have to feel bad about leaving.”

“I can’t believe you did this,” you said, your eyes closing. Hunger gnawed at your stomach, a reminder of all the time you’d spent asleep, getting farther and farther away from your family.

“You like me, don’t you?” he asked. Your eyes opened. Caspar looked pleading, a tad desperate. Oh, so innocent. It made your heart _ache_, it made your empty stomach _twist_.

“Of course I do,” you said, choking on the words. He relaxed slightly.

“Yeah, that’s good. I’m glad,” he said, nodding. Awkward. 

A moment passed, Caspar looking intently at the tent wall with furrowed eyebrows and pursed lips. It wasn’t enough time for you to think, only to feel a washing sense of distress and fear. 

“Listen,” he finally said. “I know that I can be kinda difficult and reckless. I’ve even been called annoying, but you don’t ever make me feel like that. I didn’t realize what I felt until you said that you were gonna get married. I realized that the idea of you with any other man made me angry. Livid, actually. I kinda wanted to leave and fight Lord Pendleton right then and there just for thinking about marrying you.” Caspar’s posture was hunched, his eyes down and cheeks blushing bright red. “This is so embarrassing... I swear, I didn’t want to do it like this.” He finally looked up, his jaw set as if he was readying for a fight. “The thing is, I love you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you, protecting you and taking care of you. I _know_ you didn’t want to marry that guy and that you’d be miserable, so even though it didn’t make me happy to do it like this, I _had_ to take you. You understand, right?”

"No, I don’t,” you said, your voice a pinched, parched sound. Some part of you wanted to laugh at the horrifying juxtaposition of his confession and the situation, the morbid way they complimented each other. “I don’t understand why you would do this at all.”

“I’m trying to help!” Caspar said, pleading once more. “You like me way more than that guy, you _wanted_ to come with me!”

“Why would you think that any of this is what I wanted?” you asked, meeting his shout with a shrill whisper and gesturing around the tent. Slowly, bit by bit, Caspar’s expression faltered, as if your unhappy tone was only just now invading in on his mood. It left you feeling cold. You had always known Caspar was a bit oblivious, but this was something else entirely. He truly hadn’t given a second thought to this, any of this. He thought this was for the best.

“Please don’t be upset,” he begged, moving towards you with imploring, innocent eyes. Then he smiled, and it was the worst one yet. So genuine and sweet, you felt as if you could actually see the love. Love. Caspar smiled and reached out to you with his warm, warm hands. “You had a problem, and I fixed it!”


	16. Yandere Lorenz Prompt “It’s like you were made for me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah yes, in comes the porn. Well, kinda. Idk. This chapter is NSFW

A fair maiden, he had called you. A lady of natural and simple refinement. With each gift of flowers and jewelry, Lorenz had paid you compliments stolen straight from the illustrated pages of a storybook. It was flattering, but courtship was a game you had little interest in. Still, heedless of your disinterest, there was a period of time when Lorenz played it relentlessly, taking the role of the distinguished lord of utmost nobility and charm. Until he stopped. You believed him to have moved on, that your continuous rejection had brought his interest to an end.

You were a fool.

“Beautiful,” Lorenz whispered with a tender tone, lightly testing the silken knots that kept your wrists tied to the headboard. His hand trailed down your bare arm, his long fingers drawing chills across the skin. You fought against the restraints halfheartedly, weak with the looming despair of defeat. Still, it was enough to earn yourself a disapproving frown. “Don’t pull on them recklessly,” he chided gently. “I’d never risk marring your delicate skin with unsightly metal shackles, but even using soft material doesn’t preclude the possibility of you injuring yourself if you should struggle too vigorously. And in any case, I can assure you that it is quite useless. The integrity of these ropes has been tested by people far stronger than you.” He paused, smiled. It was an expression that was really quite soft for all that it was horribly unsettling. “I’ve attempted to imagine what you might look like in such a position ever since I made the purchase. I should think you’ll be glad to know that you’ve surpassed even my most rapturous fancy. Alas, a beauty like yours cannot be imagined.”

“Please stop,” you asked, knowing by now that your protests were meaningless but unable to do anything else. Reason had failed you, rage had only gotten you bruises as he forcefully undressed you and got you onto the bed, so now you begged. “This is madness, Lorenz.”

“I suppose my love is a type of madness,” he agreed, wearing a half-smirk that made it difficult to tell if he was teasing or not. You were inclined to think he was, but that hardly made it better.

“That’s not what I meant, you-” A harsh breath left your mouth, your brain spinning as you tried to think of a way out of this. “If you allow me to leave now, I won’t tell anyone, I swear it.”

“You think I would wish to keep our love a secret?” Lorenz asked, seemingly _offended_ by the idea. “Hardly! I shall happily declare our marriage across all of Fódlan!”

Something inside of you withered, your bared skin crawling. “Marriage?” you repeated in a hoarse tone. “You and me?” 

“Admittedly, I’m doing things in a bit of a backwards fashion,” Lorenz replied, almost bashfully. “As you know, I did my best to earn your affections through the traditional methods, but even I could not open your eyes to the truth of the matter.” He sighed, pushing a stray lock of hair from your face. “It is in your very nature to play coy, is it not? Not to mention how stubborn you are... Yes, it was then that I realized that this is the only way to make you understand.”

“You’re crazy,” you whispered, but Lorenz had already left you, his attention focused on undressing himself. Aside from the silken ropes holding your wrists, you had been left only in your stockings and underwear. He had seemed charmed with the bows that adorned both, remarking that the color suited you. In some ways, it was worse to be given such scant modesty, as it meant that he intended to take his time. To savor this.

It was too much, too horrible to be real.

Lorenz said something across the room, but you couldn’t hear him over the ringing in your ears. Not the usual clamor of bells that usually accompanied great stress, but violins. The melodious whine of bow on string which had captured your heart so thoroughly earlier while you danced. While you danced with Lorenz, even, believing him to be the gentleman he masqueraded as. He had received your rejection poorly at first, but the invitation to his party tonight had seemed to be a sign of forgiveness. He was respectful when you waltzed, gentle in his smile and polite with his humor. You hadn’t suspected anything.

Lorenz had fooled you.

He had only revealed himself as the villain when he was already ensured victory, shown himself to be the duplicitous villain who lured the so-called fair maiden away from the bright lights of the ball and into his lair with sweet words, with innocent invitation to tour his famed rose garden beneath the full moon.

“You need not cry,” Lorenz said as he rejoined you on the bed, gently wiping the tear as it slid past your temple. He was undressed entirely and confident about it. For good reason, Lorenz’s skin was unmarred and pale, his build narrow yet firm. There was more than enough moonlight coming into his room to allow you to see the lean muscles of his arms and torso. Lorenz often masked his body with the frivolous clothes of any fashionable nobleman, but that didn’t take away the fact that he had been one of the most powerful combatants during the war. The ropes weren’t necessary to keep you down, they were merely an attractive accessory. “It is far from my intention to harm you, just the thought of it pains me greatly.”

“You’re lying,” you said, jerking against the bindings in a futile attempt at escaping him. In his nudity, you could see _all_ of him. Half hard and impossible to miss regardless of your lack of experience, the sight of his uncovered dick made this all the more real. Too real, too present. “You _are_ going to hurt me,” you told him, voice hitching and whiny. “I’ve never been with anyone and I _know_ it will hurt. So please… Please, I’m not ready. I’m not ready and I already tried to make it clear that I… I don’t want... And I don’t want you to _hurt_ m-”

“Hush,” Lorenz said pressing a thumb to your lips to still them, unaffected by your words. “You must relax.” His eyes met yours, soft and unyielding. He would not be moved by your words. You knew that, you knew that and it felt like drowning, like being imprisoned within your own body. There was nothing you could do, so you did as told. Lorenz smiled at your acceptance, his hand trailing down. Down your face, your neck, to your chest. You tried to move to avoid his fingers, but it was pointless. There was nowhere to go. Instead you closed your eyes, willing yourself to ignore the sensation of his finger trailing around your nipple, encouraging it to harden. You tried to will yourself to feel nothing, to hear nothing.

Pointless, of course.

“Of course, there is some truth to your words. It is the cruel whim of nature that women should suffer where men do not. I’m afraid it’s unavoidable.” You let out a sharp gasp when he gently rolled your nipple between his fingers, pinching slightly. It was instinctual that it would send strangely pleasurable ripples through you, your body reacting to the intrusive sensation. Emboldened by your reaction, Lorenz’s voice gained confidence as he continued, “But of course I will not follow the legacy of the ungainly oafs who are content to brutalize their wives for their own perverse satisfaction. As your first lover, I, Lorenz Hellman Gloucester, will give you the greatest pleasure you have ever known.”

Because of the way you’d squeezed your eyes shut, it was a shocking surprise when his hand suddenly dipped down between your legs, the other one teasing your untended nipple with the same technique. Although Lorenz was only touching you through your underwear, it was intense. Impossible to ignore, to stop yourself from reacting to. A part of you realized with the moan that left your lips that it didn’t matter how many times you denied him from then on, he’d claimed victory using the weapon of your own body.

“Please, _stop_,” you begged, keeping your eyes shut. You didn’t want to see him touching you, to see what expression he wore.

“Hush,” Lorenz said again, but his voice was distracted. His off hand had left your chest, the other rubbing against your clit through the fabric of your underwear. When you chanced a peek through your eyelashes, you saw that it was because he was stroking himself. The shadow left you unable to see the details, but there was enough light for you to know that you weren’t ready in the slightest. Even if his touch felt good, even if you felt the sickening rise of lust within your core, even if you couldn’t help but cry out slightly when his fingers finally dipped beneath the fabric to rub your clit directly. Even then, you weren’t ready.

A shaky breath left Lorenz’s mouth when his finger left your clit to brush against your entrance, gathering the wetness that had begun pooling there. It was a sound of desire and want, but also a sound of weakness. It made you flush, a deep feeling that swirled low in your core. A primal response to lust, something you couldn’t help.

“Stop, please,” you asked, half choked and panting hard as he pulled your underwear out of the way. Then, again, “Lorenz, please, by the goddess, please _stop_!” you begged as his hand returned and he slowly pushed one of those long fingers into you, the pleas undercut with your sharp breathing and the awkward way you struggled against the silken ropes. “No, no, please _plea_-” the words cut off with a whine. You might have continued, but you were too overwhelmed by the invasive cruelty to give your senseless pleading any voice. Your inner walls fluttered and clenched against the intrusion, but the pain was slight. 

Horror against horror, it felt _good_. You were too sensitive in the darkness, in your feverish heat, in the emotional swell that choked your breathing and brought the sting of tears.

Lorenz groaned unapologetically, gently pulling his finger out while curling it, rubbing against your inner walls in a way that made your toes curl. “I’ve been waiting for this for so long. You have, too, haven’t you? With nobody to take care of you like this…” He laughed, a half dazed sound. Another finger joined the first, his thumb returning to your swollen clit. There was no lazy patience in the touch, only focus and need. After all, this was just the introduction, the appetizer to the main course.

“No,” you groaned, but it wasn’t very compelling. Too weak, too helpless. Too laden with the awful tone of pleasure. You were going to come for him, you already knew it. Would you deny it? You couldn’t. Lorenz would be your first and you couldn’t stop him. Lorenz would force you to get off on his fingers and you couldn’t stop him. More tears came, but that didn’t stop the tightening in your core, the way your hips tilted to accommodate his touch.

“There’s no need to play coy anymore,” Lorenz said in a tone building with arousal. As you got closer to the edge, his movements were gaining speed, his fingers dexterous in the way they pulled sparks of pleasure to the surface, boiling hot and heavy. “There is no doubt now that you belong to me. No matter how long you pretend otherwise, your body is far more honest.”

You felt like you couldn’t breathe, your body aching to come if only to make him stop. No, it was more than that. Now that you felt such pleasure, you wanted to get off. Even if it was for Lorenz, maybe that was okay. Maybe you could ignore it, focus on the lust. It wasn’t as if you had a choice.

“I… can’t,” you ground out in a tight, choked whine. Your hips were very definitely moving against his hand to reach your end, your legs opening wider to accommodate his fingers.

“You can,” Lorenz said, full of lust and affection. “For me, sweetness, you can.”

It wasn’t enough to feel such fundamental disgust with yourself, or with the awful choice of pet name. Nor was it enough when you opened your eyes so slightly and saw Lorenz watching, his focus so entirely fixed upon you. It wasn’t enough because you still _came_, your body moving with him and your arms flexing against the bindings. So you closed your eyes and let the pulsing darkness overtake you. You ignored the moans leaving your mouth and the needful encouragements Lorenz offered, you ignored the tears drying on your face and the pain of bruises he’d left.

And then it was over, your moments of senseless pleasure faded into half blazing and confused desire. He pulled his hand away, a reward of the worst sort because you knew what was going to happen next. But you no longer had the will to fight back, to struggle against the inevitable. You couldn’t stop it, couldn’t stop him. 

Lorenz leaned down, bracing himself on his elbow, your chests nearly touching. He smelled like roses and sweet, clean linen. His long hair was silky where it brushed against your skin. “I love you,” he whispered as he kissed your lips. You didn’t reciprocate, half dazed and reeling, although he didn’t seem to mind. You knew what was to happen next, the natural continuation of events. You could feel him lining himself up at your entrance, gathering up the wet arousal from your orgasm to better ease his way. It was an entirely different sensation, the skin of his cock was soft, uncomfortably sending new sparks of pleasure through you. “My heart is yours,” Lorenz cooed. “I am yours every bit as you are mine. I love you.”

“No,” you whispered, your voice lost in the symphony of violins falling faint in your head.

“It’s okay if you don’t understand yet. It took me a great while to understand myself,” Lorenz said, his voice strained. He took a deep breath, giving you only a second of time to brace yourself before he pushed into you. Your body went tense with the intrusion, so different from his fingers, so much fuller and more aggressive. It hurt, an aching stretch. A pinching split. Panicking with the pain, you tried to squirm away from him, to free your arms. You tried to beg him to stop, tears forming and falling all over again. Pointless. Lorenz didn’t stop until he was buried deep inside of you, your bodies completely joined together. Only then did he still, letting out another shuttering, euphoric breath. A sound of true contentment, of the greatest satisfaction. When he spoke, Lorenz’s voice held the spirit of every joy and adoration you could imagine a man to have. The voice of a lover, distilled beyond madness. “It’s like you were made for me.”


End file.
